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ADVERTISEKEKT8. 



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HUKKO’S PtJBLICATtOira 


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<P. O Bqk 8m.t 17 to 87 Vandewater Street. New Tbris. 


MISTRESS AND MAID 


A E0U8EE0LD STORY. 




By miss MULOCK 

A- 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 Vandkwateb Stkkkt. 



1 

rr V 

(y" ^ 




MISS MULOCK^S WOEKS 

CONTjaNED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION): 

NO, PRICK. 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. First half ... 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. Second half . . .20 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a House-Boat . . . . 10 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story 20 

1018 Two Marriages 20 

1038 Mistress and Maid ....... 20 

1053 Young Mrs. Jardine 20 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


CHAPTER L 

She was a rather tall, awkward, and strongly built girl of 
about fifteen. This was the first iny)ression the maid 
gave to her ‘‘ mistresses,” the Misses Leaf, when she entered 
their kitchen accompanied by her mother, a widow and washer- 
woman, by name Mrs. Hand. I must confess, when they saw 
the damsel, the ladies felt a certain twinge of doubt as to 
whether they had not been rash in offering to take her; whether 
it would not have been wiser to have gone on in their old way 
— now, alas! grown into a very old way, so as almost to make 
them forget they had ever had any other — and done without a 
servant still. 

Many consultations had the three sisters held before such a 
revolutionary extravagance was determined on. But Miss Leaf 
was beginning both to look and to feel not so young as she 
had been;” Miss Selina ditto; though, being still under forty, 
she would not have acknowledged it for the world. And Miss 
Hilary, young, bright and active as she was, could by no possi- 
bility do everything that was to be done in the little establish- 
ment; be, for instance, in three places at once — in the school- 
room teaching little boys and girls, in the kitchen cooking 
dinner, and in the rooms upstairs busy at house-maid ^s work. 
Besides, much of her time was spent in waiting upon poor 
Selina,’^ who frequently was, or fancied herself, too ill to take 
any part in either the school or house duties. 

Though, the thing being inevitable, she said little about it. 
Miss Leaf’s heart was often sore to see Hilary’s pretty hands 
smeared with blacking of grates, and roughened with scouring 
floors. To herself this sort of thing had become natural — but 
Hilary! 

All the time of Hilary’s childhood the youngest of the. family 
had, of course, been spared all house-work; and afterward her 
studies had left no time for it. For she was a clever girl, with 
a geliuine love of knowledge; Latin, Greek, and even the 


6 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


higher branches of arithmetic and mathematics, were not be- 
yond her range; and this she found much- more interesting 
than washing dishes or sweeping floors. True, she always did 
whatever domestic duty she was told to do; but her bent was 
not in the household line. She had only lately learned to 
“see dust,^^ to make a pudding, to iron a shirt; and, more- 
over, to reflect, as she woke up to the knowledge of how these 
things should be done, and how necessary they were, what 
must have been her eldest sister^s lot during all these twenty 
years! What pains, what weariness, what eternal toil must 
Johanna have silently endured in order to do all those things 
which till now had seemed to do themselves! 

Therefore, after much cogitation as to the best and most 
prudent way to amend matters, and perceiving with her clear 
common sense that, willing as she might be to work in the 
kitchen, her own time would be much more valuably spent in 
teaching their growing school, it was Hilary who, these Christ- 
mas holidays, first started the bold idea, “We must have a serv- 
ant;^^ and therefore, it being necessary to begin with a very 
small servant on very low wages (£3 per annum was, I fear, 
the maximum), did they take this Elizabeth Hand. 

So, hanging behind her parent, an anxious-eyed and rather 
sad-voiced woman, did Elizabeth enter the kitchen of the 
Misses Leaf. 

The ladies were all there. Johanna arranging the table for 
their early tea; Selina lying on the sofa trying to cut bread and 
butter; Hilary on her knees before the fire, making the bit of 
toast — her eldest sister^ s one luxury. This was the picture 
that her three mistresses presented to Elizabeth's eyes; which, 
though they seemed to notice nothing, must in reality have 
noticed everything. 

“I’ve brought my daughter, ma’am, as you sent word 
you’d take on trial,” said Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to 
Selina, who, as the tallest, the best dressed, and the most im- 
posing, was usually regarded by strangers as the head of the 
family. 

“ Oh, Johanna, my dear.” 

Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncertainly, for she was of 
a shy nature, and had been so long accustomed to do the serv- 
ant’s work of the household that she felt quite awkward in 
the character of mistress. Instinctively she hid. her poor 
hands, that would at once have betrayed her to the sharp eyes 
of the working-woman, and then, ashamed of her momentary 
false pride, laid them outside her apron and sat down. 

“ Will you take a chair, Mrs, Hand? My sisterHold you, I 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 7 

believe, all our requirements. We Only want a good, intelli- 
gent girl. We are willing to teach her everything. 

“ Thank you, kindly; and I be willing and glad for her to 
learn, ma^am,^^ replied the mother, her sharp and rather free 
tone subdued in spite of herself by the gentle voice of Miss 
Leaf. Of com’se, living in the same country town, she knew 
all about the three school-inistresses, and how till now they 
had kept no servant. “ It^s her first place, and her'll be 
awk^’ard at first, most like. Hold up your head, Lizabeth. 

“ Is her name Elizabeth 

Far too long and too fine,’^ observed Selina from the sofa. 
“ Call her Betty. • 

Anything you please, miss; but I call her Lizabeth. It 
wor my young missises name in my first place, and I never had 
a second. 

‘‘We will call her Elizabeth, said Miss Leaf, with the 
gentle decision she could use on occasion. 

There was a little more discussion between the mother and 
the future mistress as to holidays, Sundays, and so on, during 
which time the new seiwant stood silent and impassive in the 
door-way between the back kitchen and the kitchen, or, .as it 
is called in those regions, the house-place. 

As before s^d, Elizabeth was by no means a personable girl, 
and her clothes did not set her ofi to advantage. Her cotton 
frock hung in straight lines down to her ankles, displaying her 
clumsily shod feet and woolen stocldngs; above it was a pina- 
fore — a regular child^s pinafore, of the cheap, strong, blue- 
speckled print which in those days was generally worn. A 
little shabby shawl, pinned at the throat, and pinned very 
carelessly and -crookedly, with an old black bonnet much too 
small for her large head and her quantities of ill-kept hair, 
completed the costume. It did not impress favorably a lady 
who, being, or rather having been, very handsome herself, 
was as much alive to appearances as the second Miss Leaf. 

She made several rather depreciatory observations, and in- 
sisted strongly that the new servant should only be taken “ on 
trial, with no obligation to keep her a day longef than they 
wished. Her feeling on the matter communicated itself to 
Johanna, who closed the negotiation with Mrs. Hand by 
saying, 

“ Well, let us hope your daughter will suit us. We will 
give her a fair chance, at all events. 

“ Which is all I can ax for, Miss Leaf. Her beanH much 
to look at, but her^s willin^ and sharp, and her’s never told 


8 


MISTRESS ANB MAID. 


me a lie in her life. Courtesy to thy missis/ and say thee^lt 
do thy best, Lizabeth. 

PuUed forward, Elizabeth did courtesy, but she never offered 
to speak. And Miss Leaf, feeling that for all parties the in- 
terview had better be shortened, rose from her chair. 

Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, saying only “ Good- 
bye, Elizabeth, with a nod half encouraging, half admoni- 
tory, which Elizabeth silently returned. That was all the 
parting between mother and daughter; they neither kissed nor 
shook hands, wliich undemonstrative farewell somewhat sur- 
prised Hilary. 

Now Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while gone on toasting. 
Luckily for her bread, the fire was low and black; meantime, 
from beliind her long drooping curls (which Johanna would 
not let her ‘‘ turn up,^^ though she was twenty), she was mak- 
ing her observations on the new servant. It might be that, 
possessing more head than the one and more heart than the 
other, Hilary was gifted with deeper perception of character 
than either of her sisters, but certainly her expression, as she 
watched Elizabeth, was rather amused and kmdly than dis- 
satisfied. 

‘‘ Now, girl, take off your bonnet, said Selina, to whom 
Johanna had silently appealed in her perplexity as to the next 
proceeding with regard to the new member of the household. 

Elizabeth ob^ed, and then stood, irresolute, awkward, and 
wretched to the4ast degree, at the furthest end of the house- 
place. 

“ Shall I show you where to hang up your things?^'’ said 
Hilary, speaking for the first time; and at the new voice, so 
quick, cheerful, and pleasant, EHzabeth visibly started. 

Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed the kitchen, took 
from the girTs unresisting hands the old black bonnet and 
shawl, and hung them up carefully on a nail behind the great 
eight-day clock. It was a simple action, done quite without 
intention, and accepted without acknowledgment, except one 
quick glance of that keen yet soft gray eye; but years and 
years after Elizabeth reminded Hilary of it. 

And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own proper likeness, 
unconcealed by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protection. The 
pinafore scarcely covered her gaunt neck and long arms; that 
tremendous head of rough, dusky hair was evidently for the 
first time gathered into a comb. Thence elf-locks escaped in 
all directions, and were forever being pushed behind her ears, 
or rubbed (not smoothed; there was nothing smooth about her) 
back from her forehead, which, Hilary noticed, was low, broad. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


9 


and full. The rest of her face, except the before-mentioned 
eyes, was absolutely and undeniably plain. Her figure, so far 
as the pinafore exhibited it, was undeveloped and ungainly, the 
chest being contracted and the shoulders rounded, as if with 
carrying children or other weights while still a growing girl. 
In fact, nature and circumstances had apparently united in 
dealing unkindly with Elizabeth Hand. 

Stin here she was; and what was to be done with her? 

Having sent her with the small burden, which was appar- 
ently all her luggage, to the little room — ^formerly a box-closet 
— where she was to sleep, the Misses Leaf — or, as the facetious 
neighbors called them, the Misses Leaves— took serious counsel 
* together over their tea. 

Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. They were always 
in the habit of taking that meal, and, indeed, every other, in 
the kitchen. It saved time, trouble, and fire, besides leaving 
the parlor always tidy for callers, chiefly pupiTs parents, and 
preventing these latter from discovering that the three orphan 
daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq. , solicitor, and sisters of Henry 
Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicitor, but whose sole mission in life 
seemed to have been to spend everything, make everybody mis- 
erable, marry, and die, that these three ladies did always wait 
upon themselves at meal-time, and did sometimes breakfast 
without butter, and dine without meat. How this system 
would not do any longer. 

Besides, there is no need for it,^^ said Hilary, cheerfully. 

am sure we can well afford both to keep and to feed a 
servant, and to have a fire in the parlor every day. Why not 
take our meals there, and sit there regularly of evenings ?'''’ 

‘‘ We must, added Selina, decidedly. “Eor my part, I 
couldnT eat, or sew, or do anything with that great hulking 
girl sitting staring opposite, or standing; for how could we ask 
her to sit with us? Already, what must she have thought of 
us — people who take tea in the kitchen ?"’"’ 

I do not think that matters,’^ said the eldest sister, gently, 
after a moment^s silence. ‘‘ Everybody in the town knows 
who and what we are, or might if they chose to inquire. We 
can not conceal our poverty if we tried; and I donT think any- 
body looks down upon us for it. Hot even since we began to 
keep school, which you thought was such a terrible thing, 
Selina. 

“ And it was. I have never reconciled myself to teaching 
the baker's two boys and the grocer's little girl. You were 
wrong, Johanna; you ought to have drawn the line some- 
where, and it ought to have excluded trades-people, " 


10 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Beggars can not be choosers/^ began Hilary. 

‘‘Bfeggars!^^ echoed Selina. 

‘‘No, my dear, we never were that,^^ said Miss Leaf, inter- 
posing against one of the sudden storms that were often break- 
ing out &tween these two. “ You know well we have never 
begged nor borrowed from anybody, and hardly ever been in- 
debted to anybody, except for the extra lesson that Mr. Lyon 
would insist upon giving to Ascott at home. , 

Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and Hilary, with a slight 
color rising in her face, said, 

“I think, sisters, we are forgetting that the staircase is 
quite open, and though I am sure she has an honest look, and not 
that of a listener, still Elizabeth might hear. Shall I call her 
down-stairs, and tell her to light a fire in the parlor ^ 

While she is doing it — and in spite of Selina ^s foreboding to 
the contrary, the small maiden did it quickly and well, espe- 
cially after a hint or two from Hilary — let me take the oppor- 
tunity of making a little picture of this same Hilary. 

Little it should be, for she was a decidedly little woman; 
small altogether, hands, feet, and figure being in satisfactory 
proportion. Her movements, like those of most little women, 
were light and quick rather than elegant; yet everything she 
did was done with a neatness and . delicacy which gave an in- 
voluntary sense of grace and harmony. She was, in brief, one 
of those people who are best described by the word “ harmoni- 
ous;^^ people who never set your teeth on edge, or rub you 
up the wrong way, as very excellent people occasionally do. 
Yet she was not overmeek or unpleasantly amiable; the«e was 
a liveliness and even briskness ajbout her, as if the every-day wine 
of her life had a spice of Ohampagniness, not frothiness, but 
natural effervescence of spirit, meant to “ cheer but not ine-' 
briate a household. 

And in her own household this gift was most displayed. No 
center of a brilliant, admiring circle could be more charming, 
more witty, more irresistibly amusing than was Hilary sitting 
by the kitchen fireside, with the cat on her knee, between her 
two sisters, and the school-boy Ascott Leaf, their nephe# — 
which four individuals, the cat being not the least important 
of them, constituted the family. 

In the family Hilary shone supreme. All recognized her as 
the light of the house, and so she had been ever since she was 
born, ever since her 

‘ ‘ Dying mother mild. 

Said, with accents undefiled. 

Child, he mother to this child.* ” 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


11 


It was said to Johanna Leaf — who was not Mrs. Leaf^s own 
child. But the ^ood step-mother, who had once taken the 
little motherless girl to her bosom, and never since made the 
slightest difference between her and her own cliildren, knew 
well whom she was trusting, 

From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when 
she lifted the hour-old baby out of its dead mother^’s bed into 
her own, it became Johanna’s one object in life. Through a 
sickly infancy, for it was a child born amidst trouble, her sole 
hands washed, dressed, fed it; night and day it lay in her 
bosom, and was unto her as a daughter. ” 

She was then just thirty;, not too old to look forward to 
woman’s natm-al destiny, a husband and children of her own. 
But years slipped by, and she was Miss Leaf still. What 
matter! Hilary was her daughter. 

Johanna’s pride in her knew no bomids. Hot that she 
showed it much; indeed, she deemed it a sacred duty not to 
show it, but to make believe her “ child ” was just like other 
children. But she was not, Hobody ever thought she was — 
even in externals. Fate gave her all those gifts which are 
sometimes sent to make up for the lack of worldly prosperity. 
Her brown eyes were as soft as doves’ eyes, yet could dance 
with fun and mischief if they chose; her hair, brown also, with 
a dark red shade in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines over her 
forehead, and then tumbled down in two glorious masses, 
which Johanna, ignorant, alas! of art, called “very untidy,” 
and labored in vain to quell under combs, or to arrange in 
proper, regular curls. Her features — ^well, they too were good; 
better than these unartistic people had any idea of — better even 
than Selina’s, who in her youth had been the belle of the town. 
But, whether artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she 
would on no account have acknowledged it, believed solemnly 
that there was not such a face in the world at little Hilary’s. 

Possibly a similar idea dawned on the apparently dull mind 
of Elizabeth Hand, for she watched her youngest mistress in- 
tently, from kitchen to parlor, and from parlor back to 
kitchen; and once, when Miss Hilary stood giving information 
as to the proper ^bode of broom, bellows, etc., the little maid 
gazed at her with such admiring observation that the scuttle 
she carried was tilted, and the coals were strewn all over the 
kitchen floor. At which catastrophe Miss Leaf looked miser- 
able, Miss Selina spoke crossly, and Ascott, who just then 
came in to his tea, late as usual, burst into a shout of laughter. 

It was as much as Hilary could do to help laughing herself, 
she being too near her nephew’s own age always to maintain a 


12 


MTSTKESS AKD MAID. 


dignified, aunt-like attitude; but nevertheless, when, having 
disposed of her sisters in the parlor, she coaxed Ascott into the 
school-room, and insisted upon his Latin being done — she 
helping him. Aunt Hilary scolded him well, and bound him 
over to keep the peace toward the new servant. 

“ But she is such a queer one. Exactly like a South Sea 
Islander. When she stood with her grim, stolid, despairing 
countenance, contemplating the coals — oh, Aunt Hilary, how 
kilhng she was!^^ 

And the regular, rollicking, irresistible boy-laugh broke out 
again. 

She will be great fun. Is she really to stay?^^ 

“ I hope so,^" said Hilary, trying to be grave. ‘‘ I hope 
never again to see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and get- 
ting up to light the kitchen fire of winter mornings, as she will 
do if we have not a servant to do it for her. Don^’t you see, 
Ascott?^'’ 

‘‘Oh, I see, ^•’answered the boy> carelessly. “But don^t 
bother me, please. Domestic affairs are for woman, not 
men. Ascott was eighteen, und just about to pass out of his 
caterpillar state as a doctor^s apprentice-lad into the chrysalis 
condition of a medical student in London. “ But,^^ with sud- 
den reflection, “ I hope she wonH be in my way. Don^t let 
her meddle with any of my books and things. 

“ Ho; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into 
your room. I myself cleared your rubbish out of the box- 
closet — 

“ The box-closet! How, really, I canT stand — 

“ She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she 
sleep said Hilary, resolutely, though inwardly quaking a 
little; for somehow the merry, handsome, rather exacting lad 
had acquired considerable influence in this household of 
women. “You must put up with the loss of your ‘den,^ 
Ascott: it would be a great shame if you did not, for the sake 
of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us.-^^ 

“ Um!^^ grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad 
fellow at heart, had a boy's dislike to “ putting up " with the 
shghtest inconvenience. “ Well, it won't last long. I shall 
be off shortly. What a jolly life I'll have in London, Aunt 
Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too." 

“Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and 
AEneas; hunjible and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; 
but Ascott was not a brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed 
early, his education had been much neglected, till Mr. Lyon 
came as ushet to the Stowbury Grammar-school, and happen- 


MISTRESS AND 3fAlD. 


13 


ing to meet and take an interest in Mm, taught him and his 
Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics together, of even- 
ings. 

I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human 
nature all the world over. A tale without love in it would be 
unnatural, unreal — in fact, a simple lie; for there are no his- 
tories and no lives without love in them; if there could be. 
Heaven pity and pardon them, for they would be mere abor- 
tions of humanity. 

“Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize : we 
only live. Wo like one another, we hardly know why; we love 
one another, we still less know why. If on the day she first 
saw — in church it was — Mr. Lyon^s grave, heavy-browed, 
somewhat severe face — for he was a Scotsman, and his sharp 
strong Scotch features did look “hard beside the soft, rosy 
well-conditioned Saxon youth of Stowbury — if on that Sunday 
any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger 
was to be the one face of her life, stamped upon brain, and 
heart, and soul with a vividness that no other impressions were 
strong enough to efface, and retained there with a tenacity that 
no vicissitudes of time, or place, or fortunes had power to 
alter, Hilary would — yes, I think she would — have quietly kept 
looking on. She would have accepted her lot, such as it was, 
with its shine and shade, its joy and its anguish; it came to her 
without her seeking, as most of the solemn things in life do; 
and, whatever it brought with it, it could have come from no 
other source than that from which all high, and holy, and 
pure loves ever must come — the will and permission of God. 

Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In Ms first 
visit he had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to 
be known; that he was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had 
altogether “made himself,'’^ as so many Scotch students do. 
His father, whom he scarcely remembered, had been a small 
Ayrshire farmer; his mother was dead, and he had never had 
either brother or sister. 

Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a 
school-mistress she would need all the education she could get, 
he had offered to teach her along with her nephew; and she 
and Johanna were only too thanflul for the advantage. But 
during, the teaching he had also taught her another thing, 
which neither had contemplated at the time — to respect him' 
with her whole soul, and to love him with her whole heart. 

Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary said 
nothing. She recognized it herself as soon as he was gone; a 
plain, sad, solemn truth, which there was no deceiving herself 


14 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


did not exist, even had she wished its non-existence. Perhaps 
Johanna also found it out in her darling’s extreme paleness 
and unusual quietness for awhile; but she, too, said nothing. 
Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, and once or twice to her. 
Miss Leaf; but, though every one knew that Hilary was his 
particular friend in the whole family, he did not write to Hil- 
ary. He had departed rather suddenly, on account of some 
plan which, he said, affected his future very considerably, but 
which, though he was in the habit of telling them his affairs, 
he did not further explain. Still Johanna knew he was a good 
man, and, though no man could be quite good enough for her 
darling, she hked him, she trusted him. 

AVhat Hilary felt no one knew. But she was very girlish in 
some things; and her life was all before her, full of infinite 
hope. By and by her color returned, and her merry voice and 
laugh were heard about the house just as usual. 

This being the position of affairs, it was not surprising that 
after Ascott’s last speech Hilary’s mind wandered from Dido 
and ^neas to vague listening, as the lad began talking of his 
grand future — the future of a medical student, all expenses 
being paid by his godfather, Mr. Ascott, the merchant, of 
Kussell Square, once a shop-boy of Stowbury. Nor was it un- 
natural that all Ascott’s anticipations of London resolved 
themselves, in his aunt’s eyes, into the one fact that he would 
“ see Mr. Lyon.” 

But in telling this much about her mistresses, I have for the 
time being lost sight of Elizabeth Hand, 

Left to herself, the girl stood for a minute or two looking 
around her in a confused manner; then, rousing her faculties, 
began mechanically to obey the order with which her mistress 
liad quitted the kitchen; and to wash up the tea things. She 
did it in a fashion that, if seen, would have made Miss Leaf 
thankful the ware was only the common set, and not the 
cherislied cliina belonging to former days: still she did it, 
noisily it is true, but actively, as if her heart were in the work. 
Tlien she took a candle and peered about her new domains. 

These were small enough, at least they would have seemed 
so to other eyes than Elizabeth’s; for, until the school-room 
and box-closet above had been kindly added by the landlord, 
who would have done anything to show his respect, for the 
Misses Leaf, it had been merely a six-roomed cottage — parlor, 
kitchen,, back kitchen, and three upper chambers. It was a 
\ ery cozy house notwithstanding, and it seemed to Elizabeth’s 
eyes a perfect palace. 

For several minutes more she stood and contemplated her 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


15 


kitchen, with the fire shining on the round oaken stand in the 
center, and the large wooden-bottomed chairs, and the loud- 
ticking clock, with its tall case, the inside of which, with its 
pendulum aiid weights, had been a perpetual mystery and de- 
light, first to Hilary^ s, and then to Ascotk’s childhood. Then 
there was the sofa, large and ugly, but oh! so comfortable, 
with its faded, flowered chintz, washed and worn for certainly 
twenty years. And, oyer all, Elizabeth's keen observation was 
attracted by a queer machine apparently made of thin rope and 
bits of wood, which hung up to the hooks on the ceiling— an 
old-fashioned baby^s swing. Finally, her eye dwelt with con- 
tent on the blue and red diamond-tiled floor, so easily swept 
and mopped, and (only Ehzabeth did not think of that, for her 
hard childhood had been all work and no play) so beautiful to 
whip tops upon ! Hilary and Ascott, condoling together over 
the new servant, congratulated themselves that their delight in 
this occupation had somewhat faded, though it was really not 
so many years ago since one of the former’s pupils, coming 
suddenly out of the school-room, had caught her in the act of 
whipping a meditative top round this same kitchen floor. 

Meantime Elizabeth penetrated further, investigating the 
back kitchen, /with its various conveniences; especially the 
pantry, every shelf of which was so neatly arranged and so 
beautifully clean. Apparently this neatness impressed the girl 
with a sense of novelty and curiosity ; and though she could 
hardly be said to meditate — ^her mind was not sufficiently awak- 
ened for that — still, as she stood at the kitchen fire, a slight 
thoughtfulness deepened the expression of her face, and made 
it less dull and ’ " ^ ^ "npeared. 



They must work' 


i( 


I wonder 


pretty hard, I reckon; and two o^ them’s such little uns.” 

She stood a little while longer; for sitting down appeared to 
be to Elizabeth as new a proceeding as thinking; then she 
went upstairs, still literally obeying orders, to shut windows 
and pull down blinds at nightfall. The bedrooms were small, 
and insignificantly, nay, shabbily furnished; but the floors 
were spotless — ah! poor Johanna! — and the sheets, though 
patched and darned to the last extremity, were white and 
whole. Nothing was dirty, nothing untidy. Tl^ere was no 
attempt at picturesque poverty— for, whatever novelists may 
say, poverty can not be picturesque; but all things were decent 
and in order. The house, poor as it was, gave the impression 
of belonging to “ real ladies;” ladies who thought no mannei- 
of work beneath them, and who, whatever they had to do, . 
took the pains to do it as well as possible. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


U 

Mrs. Hand^s roughly broiight-up daughter had never been 
in such a house before, and her examination of every new cor- 
ner of it seemed quite a revelation. Her own little sleeping 
nook was fully as tidy and comfortable as the rest, which fact 
was not lost upon Elizabeth. That bright look of mingled 
softness and intelligence — the only thing which beautified her 
rugged face — came into the girEs eyes as she ‘‘ turned down 
the truckle-bed, and felt the warm blankets arid sheets, new 
and rather coarse, but neatly sewed. 

Her’s made ^em herseE, I reckon. La!” Which of her 
mistresses the her ” referred to remained unspecified; but 
Elizabeth, spurred to action by some new idea, went briskly 
back into the bedrooms, and looked about to see it there was 
anything she could find to do. At last, with a sudden inspira- 
tion, she peered into a wash-stand, and found there an empty 
ewer. Takmg it in one hand and the candle in the other, she 
ran down-stairs. 

Fatal activity! Hilary^s pet cat, startled from sleep on the 
kitchen hearth, at the same instant ran wildly upstairs; there 
was a start — a stumble — and then down came the candle, the 
ewer, Elizabeth, and all. 

It was an awful crash. It brought every member of the 
family to see what was the matter. 

“ What has the girl broken?” cried Selina. * 

Where has she hurt herself?” anxiously added Johanna. 

Hilary said nothing, but ran for a hght, and then picked up 
first the servant, then the candle, and then the fragments of 
crockery. 

“ Why, it’s my ewer, my favorite ewer, and it’s all smashed 
to bits, and I never can match it. You careless, clumsy, good- 
for-nothing creature!’’ 

Please, Selina,” whispered her distressed elder sister. 

'‘Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose; 
why don’t you speak to your servant?” 

Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied herself 
that no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then 
asked her how this disaster had happened. For a serious 
disaster she felt it was. Not only was the present loss annoy- 
ing, but a servant with a talent for crockery breaking would 
be a far too expensive luxury for them to think of retaining. 
And she had been listening in the solitude of the parlor to a 
long lecture from her always dissatisfied younger sister on the 
great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth’s " siuting.” 

“ Come, now,” seeing the girl hesitated, " tell me the plain 
truth. How was it?” 


MISTRESS AND 3IAID. 


17 


It was the cat!^^ sobbed Elizabeth. 

“What a barefaced falsehood!” exclaimed Selina. “You 
wicked girl, how could it possibly be the cat? Do you know 
you are telling a lie, and that lies are hateful, and that all liars 
go to — ” 

“ Nonsense! hush!^’ interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; for 
Selina’s “ tongue,” the terror of her childhood, now merely 
annoyed her. Selina’s temper was a long understood house- 
hold fact — they did not much mind it, knowing her bark was 
worse than her bite — but it was provoking that she should ex- 
hibit herself so soon before the new servant. 

The latter first looked up at the lady with simple surprise : 
then as, in spite of the other two. Miss Selina worked herself 
up into a downright passion, and unlimited abuse fell upon the 
victim’s devoted head, Elizabeth’s manner changed. After 
one dogged repetition of “It was the cat!” not another word 
could be got out of her. She stood, her eyes fixed on the 
kitchen floor, her brows knitted, and her under lip pushed out 
— the very picture of sullenness. Young as she was, Eliza- 
beth evidently had, like her unfortunate mistress, “ a temper 
of her own ” — a spiritutl deformity that some people are bom 
with, as others with hare-lip or club-foot; only, unlike these, 
it may be conquered, though the battle is long and sore, some- 
times ending only with life. 

It had plainly never commenced with poor EUzabeth Hand. 
Her appearance, as she stood under the flood of sharp words 
poured out upon her, was absolutely repulsive. Even Miss 
Hilary turned away, and began to think it would have been 
easier to teach all day and do housework half the night, than 
have the infliction of a servant — to say nothing of the disgrace 
of seeing Selina’s “ pecularities ” so exposed before a stranger. 

She knew of old that fco stop the torrent was impracticable. 
The only chance was to let Selina expend her wrath and re- 
tire, and then to take some quiet opportunity of explaining to. 
Elizabeth that sharp language was only “ her way,” and must 
be put up with. Humiliating as this was, and fatal to domestic 
authority that the first thing to be taught a new servant was 
to “ put up with ” one of her mistresses, still there was no 
alternative. Hilary had already foreboded and made up her 
mind to such a possibility, but she had hoped it would not oc- 
cur the very first evening. 

It did, however, and its climax was worse even than she an- 
ticipated. Whether, irritated by the intense sidlemiess of the 
girl/ Selina’s temper was worse than usual, or whether, as is 
always the case with people like her, something else had vexed 


18 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


her, and she vented it upon the. first cause, of annoyance that 
occurred, certain it is that her tongue went on unchecked till 
it failed from sheer exhaustion. And then, as she fiung her- 
self on the sofa — oh, sad mischance! — she caught sight of her 
nephew standing at the school-room door, grinning with intense 
delight, and making faces at her behind her back. 

It was too much. The poor lady had no more words left to 
scold with; but she rushed up. to Ascott, and, big lad as he 
was, she soundly boxed his ears. 

On this terrible climax let the curtain fall. 


CHAPTER 11. 

Common as were the small feuds between Ascott and his 
Aunt Selina, they seldom reached such a catastrophe as that 
described in my last chapter. Hilary had to fiy to the rescue, 
and literally drag the furious lad back into the school-room; 
while Johanna, pale and trembling, persuaded Selina to quit 
the field and go and lie down. This <^^as not difficult; for the 
instant she saw what she had done, how she had disgraced her- 
self and insulted her nephew, Selina felt sorry. Her passion 
ended in a gush of “ nervous ’^Tears, under "the infiuence of 
which she was led upstairs and put to bed, almost like a child 
— the usual termination of these pitiful outbreaks. 

For the time nobody thought of Elizabeth. The hapless 
cause of all stood “ spectatress of the fray beside her kitchen 
fire. What she thought history saith not. Whether in her 
OAvn rough home she was used to see brothers and sisters quar- 
reling, and mothers boxing their children's ears, can not be 
known; whether she was or was not surprised to see the same 
proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, she never betrayed; 
but certain it is that the little servant became uncommonly 
serious — yes, serious rather than sulky, for her black looks 
vanished gradually — as soon as Miss Selina left the kitchen. 

On the reappearance of Miss Hilary it had quite gone. But 
Hilary took no notice of her; she was in search of Johanna, 
who, shaking and cold with agitation, came slowly down-stairs. 

‘‘ Is she gone to bed?^^ 

‘‘ Yes, my dear. It was the best thing for her; she is not at 
all well to-day. 

Hilary's lip curled a little, but she replied not a word. She 
had not the patience with Selina that Johanna had. She drew^ 
her elder sister into the little parlor, placed her in the arm- 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 19 

chair, shut the door, came and sat beside her, and took her 
hand. 

J ohanna pressed it, shed a quiet tear or two, and wiped them 
away. Then the two sisters remained silent, with hearts sad 
and sore. 

Every family has its skeleton in the house; this was theirs. 
Whether they acknowledged it or not, they knew quite well 
that every discomfort they had, every slight jar which disturbed 
the current of household peace, somehow or other originated 
in poor Selina.^" They often called her “ poor with a sort 
of pity— -not unneeded. Heaven knows! for if the unhappy are 
to be pitied, ten times more so are those who make others 
miserable. 

This was Selina^’s case, and had been all her life. And, 
sometimes, she herself knew it. Sometimes, after an especially 
bad outbreak, her compunction and remorse would be almost 
as terrible as her passion, forcing her sisters to make every ex- 
cuse for her; she “ did’ not mean it;^^ it was only ‘‘ ill health,’' 
or nerves,” or her unfortunate way of taking things. ” 

But they knew in their hearts that not all their poverty and 
the toils it entailed> not all the hardships and humiliations of 
their changed estate, were half so bitter- to bear as this some- 
thing — no moral crime, and yet in its results as fatal as crime 
— which they called Selina’s “ way.” 

Ascott was the only one who did not attempt to mince mat-p 
ters. When a little boy he had openly declared he hated Aunt 
Selina; when he grew up he as openly defied her; and it was a 
most difficult matter to keep even decent peace between them. 
Hilary’s wrath had never gone further than wishing Selina 
was married, that appearing the easiest way to get rid of her. 
Latterly she had ceased this earnest aspiration, it might be 
because, learning to think more seriously of marriage, she felt 
that a woman who is no blessing in her own household is never 
likely much to bless a husband’s; and that, looking still further 
forward, it was, on the whole, a mercy of Providence which 
made Selina not the mother of children. 

Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise, for she 
had been attractive in her day, handsome and agreeable in 
society. But perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the oppo- 
site sex had discovered the cloven foot, since, though she had 
received various promising attentions, poor Selina had ‘never 
had an offer; nor, fortunately, had she ever been known to 
care for anybody. She was one of those women who would 
have married as a matter of course, but who never would have 
been guilty of the weakness of falling in love. There seemed 


20 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


small probability of shipping her off^ to carry into a new house- 
hold the restlessness, the fretfulness, the captious fault-finding 
with others, the readiness to take offense at what was done and 
said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the unacknowl- 
edged grief and torment of her own. 

Her two sisters sat silent. What was the use of talking? It 
would be only going over and over again the old thing; trying 
to ease and shift a little the long-familiar burden which they 
knew must be borne. Nearly every household has, near or 
remote, some such burden, which Heaven only can lift off or 
help to bear. And sometimes, looking romid the world out- 
side, these two congratulated themselves, in a half sort of way, 
that theirs was as Light as it was; that Selina was, after all, a 
well-meaning, well-principled woman, and, in spite of her 
little tempers, really fond” of her family, as she truly was, at 
least as fond as a nature which has its center in self can man- 
age to be. 

Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest sister^s 
pale face, where year by year the lines were deepening, and 
saw now every agitation such as the present shook her more 
and more — she who ought to have a quiet life and a cheerful 
home, after so many hard years — then Hilary, fierce in the re- 
sistance of her youth, felt as if what she could have borne for 
lierself she coidd not bear for Johanna, and, at the moment, 
-sympathized with Ascott in actually “ hating Aunt Selina. 

“ Where is that boy? He ought to be spoken to,"’"’ Johanna 
said, at length, rising wearily. 

I have spoken to him; I gave him a good scolding. He is 
sorry, and promises never to be so rude again. 

‘‘ Oh, no; not till the liext time,^^ replied Miss Leaf, hope- 
lessly. “ But, Hilary,"^ with a sudden consternation, what 
are we to do alDOut Elizabeth?^^ 

The younger sister had thought of that. She had turned 
over .in her mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable 
“worries” that would result frouL the presence of an ad- 
ditional member of the family, especially one from whom the 
family skeleton could not be hid--to whom it was already only 
too fatally revealed. 

But Hilary was a clear-headed girl, and she had the rare 
faculty of seeing things as they really were, undistorted by her 
own likings or dislikings — in fact, without reference to herself 
at all. She perceived plainly that Johanna ought not to do 
the housework; that Selina would not, and that she could not; 
ei^go, they must keep a servant. Better, perhaps, a small serv- 
ant, over whom they could have the same influence as over a 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


n 

child, than one older and more independent, who would irritate 
her mistresses at home, and chatter of them abroad. Besides, 
they had promised Mrs. Hand to give her daughter a fair trial. 
For a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to stay; afterward, 
time would show. It was best not to meet troubles half-way. 

Tliis explained, in Hilary’s cheerful voice, seemed greatly to 
reassure and comfort her sister. 

“ Yes, love, you are right; she must remain her month out, 
unless she does something very wrong. Do you think that 
really was a lie she told?” 

“ About the cat? I don’t quite know what to think. Let 
us call her, and put the question once more. Do you put it, 
Johanna. I don’t think she could look at you and tell you a' 
story. ” 

Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave face, its bloom 
faded, and hairs silvered long before their time, yet beautiful, 
with an almost child-like sirnplicity and child-like peace — most 
other people would have been of Hilary’s opinion. 

“ Sit down; I’ll call her. Dear me, Johanna, we shall 
have to set up a bell as well as a servant, unless we had man- 
aged to combine the two. ” 

But Hilary’s harmless little joke failed to make her sister 
smile, and the entrance of the girl seemed to excite positive 
apprehension. How was it possible to make excuse to a serv- 
ant for her mistress’s shortcomings? how scold for ill-doing 
this young girl, to whom, ere she had been a night in the 
house, so bad an example had been set? Johanna half expected 
Elizabeth to take a leaf out of Selina’s book, and begin abusing 
herself and Hilary. 

No; she stood very sheepish, very imcomf or table, but not in 
the least bold or sulky — on the whole, looking rather penitent 
and humble. 

Her mistress took courage. 

Elizabeth, I want you to tell me the truth about that un- 
fortunate breakage. Don’t be afraid. I had rather you broke 
everything in the house than have told me what was not true.” 

It was true; it was^the cat. ” 

How could that be possible? You were coming down- 
stairs with the ewer in your hand.” 

He got under my feet, and throwed me down, and so I 
tumbled, and smashed the thing agin the floor. ” 

The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. This version of the 
momentous event was probable enough, and the girl’s eager, 
lionest manner gave internal confirmatory evidence pretty 
strong. 


MISTRESS AND :MAID. 


22 

I am sure she is telling the truth/'’ said Hilary, And 
remember what her mother said about her word being always 
reliable. 

This reference was too much for Elizabeth. She burst out, 
not into actual crying, but into a smothered choke. 

‘‘ If you donT believe me, missus, I^d rather go home to 
mother. 

I do believe you,^^ said Miss Leaf, kindly; then waited till 
the pinafore, used as a pocket-handkerchief, had dried up grief 
and restored composure. 

“ I can quite well understand the accident now; and I am 
sure, if you had put it as plainly at first, my sister would have 
understood it too. She was very much annoyed, and no won- 
der. She will be equally glad to find she was mistaken.'’^ 

Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat -puzzled how to express 
what she felt it her duty to say, so as to be comprehended by 
the servant, and yet not to let down the dignity of the family. 
Hilary came to her aid. 

“ Miss Selina is sometimes hasty; but she means kindly 
always. You must take, care not to vex her, Elizabeth; and 
you must never answer her ’ back again, however sharply she 
speaks. It is not your business; you are only a child, and she 
is your mistress.'’^ 

Is her? I thought it was this un. 

The subdued clouding of Elizabeth's face, and her blunt 
pointing to Miss Leaf as /‘this un,'’^ were too much for 
Hilary^s gravity. She was obliged to retreat to the press, and 
begin an imaginary search for a book. 

“Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you may consider me 
specially as your mistress,^' said Johanna, simply. “ Remem- 
ber always to come to me in any difficulty; and, above all, to 
tell me everythmg outright, as soon as it happens. I can for- 
give you almost any fault if you are truthful and honest; but 
there is one thing I never could forgive, and that is deception. 
Now go with Miss Hilary, and she will teach you how to make 
the porridge for supper.^'’ 

Elizabeth obeyed silently : she had apparently a great gift for 
silence. And she was certainly both obedient and willing: not 
stupid, either, though a nervousness of temperament which 
Hilary was surprised to find in so big and coarse-looking a girl 
made her rather awkward at first. However, she succeeded in 
pouring out, and carrying into the parlor without accident, 
three platefuls of that excellent condiment which formed the 
frugal supper of the family, but which they eat, I grieve to 
say, in an orthodox southern fashion, with sugar or treacle. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 23 

until Mr. Lyon — greatly horrified thereby — had instituted his 
national custom of suj)l)ing porridge with milk. 

It may be a very unsentimental thing to confess, but Hilary, 
who, even at twenty, was rather practical than poetical, never 
made the porridge without thinking of Robert Lyon, and the 
day when he first stayed to supper and eat it, or, as he said, 
and was very much laughed at, eat “ them ’’ with such infinite 
relish. Since then, whenever he came, he always asked for this 
porridge, saying it carried him back to his childish days. ^ And 
Hilary, with that curious pleasure that womdn take in waiting 
upon any one unto whom the heart is ignorantly beginning to 
own the allegiance, humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdi- 
nand: 

“ To be your fellow 

You may deny me; but I’ll be your servant 
Whether you will or no.” 

Hilary contrived always to make his supper herself. 

Those pleasant days were now over; Mr. Lyon was gone. As 
she stood alone over the kitchen fire, , she thought — as now and 
then she let herself think for a minute or two in heFbusy 
prosaic life — of that August night, standing at the front door, 
of his last good-bye, and last hand-clasp, tight, warm and 
firm; ^d somehow she, like Johanna, trusted in him. 

Not exactly in his love; it seemed almost impossible that he 
should love her, at least till she grew much more worthy of 
liim than now; but in himself, that he would never be less 
himself, less thoroughly good and true than now. That, some 
time, he would be sure to come back again, and take up his old 
relations with them, brightening their dull life with his cheer- 
fulness; infusing in their feminine household the new element 
of a clear, strong, ' energetic, manly will, which sometimes 
made Johanna say that instead of twenty-five the young man 
might be forty; and, above all, bringing into their poverty tlie 
silent s3Tnpathy of one who had fought his own battle with the 
world — a hard one, too, as his face sometimes showed — though 
he never said much about it. 

Of the results of this pleasant relation — whether she, beiug 
the only truly marriageable person in the house, Robert Lyon 
intended to marry her, or was expected to do so, or that society 
would think it a very odd thing it he did not do so— ^this un- 
sophisticated Hilary never thought at all. If he had said to 
her that the present state of things was to go on forever; she 
to remain always Hilary Leaf, and he Robert Lyon, the faith- 
ful friend of the family, she would have smiled in his face and 
been perfectly satisfied. 


^4 


>1ISTKESS Am) MAID. 


True, she had never had anything to drive away the smile 
from that iimocent face; no vague jealousies aroused; no mad- 
dening rumors afloat in the small world that was his and theirs. 
Mr. Lyon was grave and sedate in all his ways; he never paid 
the slightest attention to, or expressed the slightest interest in, 
any woman whatsoever. 

And so this hapless girl loved him— just himself; without 
the slightest reference to his connections, for he had none; 
or his '^prospects,'’^ which, if he had any, she did not know of. 
Alas! to practical and prudent people I can offer no excuse for 
her, except, perhaps, what Shakespeare gives in the creation of 
his poor Miranda. 

When the small servant re-entered the kitchen, Hilary, with, 
a half sigh, shook off her dreams, called Ascott out of the 
school-room, and returned to the workaday world and the 
family supper. 

This being ended, seasoned with a few quiet words adminis- 
tered to Ascott, and which, on the whole, he took pretty well, 
it was nearly ten o'* clock. 

“ Far too late to have kept up such a child as ‘Elizabeth; we 
must not do it again, said Miss Leaf, taking down the large 
Bible with which she was accustomed to conclude the day — 
Ascott ^s early hours at school and their own house-work mak- 
ing it difficult of mornings. Very brief the reading was, some- 
times not more than half a dozen verses, with no comment 
thereon; she thought the Word of God might safely be left to 
expound itself. Being a very humble-minded woman, she did 
“not feel qualified to lead long devotional exercises,’^ and she 
disliked formal written prayers. So she merely read the Bible 
to her family, and said after it the Lord^s Prayer. 

But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf was, to do even this in 
presence of a stranger cost her some effort; and it was only a 
sense of duty that made her say yes to Hilary^s suggestion, 
“ I suppose we ought to call in Elizabeth?^^ 

Elizabeth came. 

“ Sit down,"'^ said her mistress; and she sat down, staring 
uneasily round about her, as if wondermg what was going to 
befall her next. Very silent was the little parlor; so small, 
that it was almost filled up by its large square piano, its six cane- 
bottomed chairs, and one easy-chair, in the which sat Miss 
Leaf, wfth the great Book in her lap. 

Can you read, Elizabeth?'’^ 

“ Yes, ma^am.'’^ 

“ Hilary, give her a Bible.'’ 

And so Elizabeth followed, guided by her not too clean fin- 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


^5 


ger, tlie words, read in that soft, low voice, somewhere out of 
the New Testament; words simple enough for the comprehen- 
sion of a child or a heathen. The ‘‘ South Sea Islander, as 
Ascott long persisted in calling her, then, doing as the family 
did, turned round to kneel down; hut in her confusion she 
knocked over a chair, causing Miss Leaf to wait a minute till 
reverent silence was restored. Elizabeth knelt, with her eyes 
fixed on the wall: it was a green paper, patterned with hunches 
of nuts. How far she listened, or how much she understood, 
it was impossible to say; but her manner was decent and 
decorous. 

“ Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass 
against us.^^ Unconsciously’ Miss Leaf^s gentle voice rested 
on these words, so needed in the daily life of every human be- 
ing, and especially of every family. Was she the only one who 
thought of poor Selina?'’^ 

They all rose from their knees, and Hilary put the Bible 
away. The little servant hung about, apparently uncer- 
tain what was next to be done, or what was expected of her to 
do. Hilary touched her sister. 

Yes,^^ said Miss Leaf, recollecting herself, and assuming 
the due authority, “it is quite time for all the family to be in 
bed. Take care of your candle, and mind and be up at six to- 
morrow morning.'’^ 

This was addressed to the new maiden, who dropped a 
courtesy, and said, almost cheerfully, “ Yes, ma^am.'’^ 

“ Very well. Good-night, Elizabeth. 

And, following Miss Leaf^s example, the other two, even 
Ascott, said civilly and kindly, “ Gocxl-night, Elizabeth. 


CHAPTER III. 

The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott left for London. 
It was the greatest household change the Misses Leaf had known 
for years, and they missed him sorely. Ascott was not exactly 
a lovable boy, and yet, after the fashion of womankind, his 
aunts were both fond and proud of him; fond, in their child- 
less old-maidenhood, of any sort of nephew, and proud, Uncon- 
sciously, that the said nephew was a big fellow, who could look 
over all their heads, besides being handsome and pleasant-man- 
nered, and, though not clever enough to set the Thames on 
fire, still sufficiently bright to make them hope that in his fut- 
ure the family star might again rise. 

There was something pathetic in these three women^s 
idealization of him — even Selina^s, who, though quarreling 


26 


MISTRESS AKD MAIB. 


with him to his face, always praised him behind his back — that 
great, good-looking, lazy lad; who, everybody else saw clearly 
enough, thought more of his own noble self than of all his 
aunts put together. The only person he stood in awe of was 
Mr. Lyon, for whom he always protested unbounded respect 
and admiration. How far Robert Lyon liked Ascott even 
Hilary could never quite find out; but he was always very kind 
to him. 

There was one person in the house who, strange to say, did 
not succumb to the all-dommating youth. From the very first 
there was .a smoldering feud between him and Elizabeth. 
Whether she overheard, and slowly began to comprehend his 
mocking gibes about the “ South 'Sea Islander, or whether her 
sullen and dogged spirit resisted the first attempts the lad made 
to “ put upon her — as he did upon his aunts, in small daily 
tyrannieS“Was never found out; but certainly Ascott, the general 
favorite, found little favor with the new servant. She never 
answered when he hollo’d ” for her; she resisted blacking 
his boots more than once a day; and she obstinately cleared the 
kitchen fire-place of his “ messes, ” as she ignominiously termed 
various pots and pans belonging to what lie called his ‘‘ medi- 
cal studies.” 

Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, and 
sometimes a source of private amusement to the aunts, still, 
on the whole, it was a relief when the exciting cause of it de- 
parted; his new and most gentlemanly portmanteau being car- 
ried down-stairs by Elizabeth herself, of her own accord, with 
an air of cheerful alacrity, foreign to her mien for some weeks 
past, and which, even in the midst of the dolorous parting, 
amused Hilary extremely. 

“I think that girl is a character,” she said afterward to 
Johanna. ‘^Anyhow she has curiously strong likes and dis- 
likes.” 

You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up when- 
ever she looks at you. ” 

Does she? Oh, that must be because I have most to do 
with her. It is wonderful how friendly one gets over sauce- 
pans and brooms, and what reverence one inspires in the 
domestic mind when one really knows how to make a bed or a 
pudding.” 

“ Howl wish you had to do neither!” sighed Johanna, look- 
ing fondly at the bright face and light little figure that was 
flitting about, putting the school-room to rights before the 
pupils came iu. 

“ Nonsense — I don’t wish any such thing. Doing it makes 


MISTRESS AKI) MAID. 


me not a whit less charming and lovely.^" She often applied 
these adjectives to herself, with the most perfect conviction that 
she was uttering a fiction patent to everybody. ‘‘ I must be 
very juvenile also, for I^m certain the fellow-passenger at the 
station to-day took me for Ascott^s sweetheart. When we 
were saying good-bye, an old gentlemen who sat next him was. 
particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen how indig- 
nantly Ascott replied, ‘ It^s only my mint ” 

Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, 
as Hilary had meant it should. She only said, caressing her, 

“ Well, my pet, never mind. I hope you may have a real 
sweetheart some day. 

“ I^m in no hurry, thank you, Johanna.’^ 

But now was heard the knock after knock of the little boys 
and girls, and there began that monotonous daily round of 
school labor, rising from the simplicities of c, a, t, cat, and 
d, 0, g, dog, to the sublime heights of Pinnock and Lennie, 
Tel^maque and Latin Delectus. No loftier: Stowbury being 
well supplied with first-class schools, and having a vague im- 
pression that the Misses Leaf, born ladies and not brought up 
as governesses, were not competent educators except of very 
small children. 

Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept con- 
tentedly to the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little ' 
butchers and bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only sewing, 
and came into the school-room but little during the day, scorn- 
fully termed them. The higher branches, such as they were, she 
left gradually to Hilary, who, of late, possibly out of sympathy 
with a friend of hers, had begun to show an actual gift for 
teaching school. 

It is a gift, all will allow, and chiefly those who have it not, 
among which was poor Johanna Leaf. -The admiring envy 
with which she watched Hilary, moving briskly about from 
class to class, with a word of praise to one and rebuke to an- 
other, keeping every one^s attention alive, spurring on the dull, 
controlling the unruly, and exercising over every member in 
this little world that influence, at once the strongest -land most 
intangible and inexplicable — personal influence — was only 
equaled by the way in which, at pauses in the day^s work, 
when it grew dull and monotonous, or when the stupidity of 
the children ruffled her own quiet temper beyond endurance, 
Hilary watched Johanna. 

The time I am telling of is now long ago. The Stowbury 
children, who were then little boys and girls, are now fathers 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and mothers — doubtless a large proportion being decent trades- 
folk in Stowbury still; though, in this locomotive quarter, 
many must have drifted off elsewhere— wHfere, Heaven knows! 
But not a few of them may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who 
first taught them their letters — sitting in her corner between 
the fire and the window, while the blind was drawn down to 
keep out, first the light from her own fading eyes, and, second- 
ly, the distracting view of green fields and trees from the youth- 
ful eyes by her side. They may remember still her dark plain 
dress and her white apron, on which the primers, torn and 
dirty, looked half ashamed to lie; and, above all, her sweet 
face, and sweeter voice, never heard in anything sharper than 
that grieved tone which signified their being ‘^naughty chil- 
dren. They may recall her unwearied patience with the very 
dullest and most wayward of them; her unfailing sympathy 
with every infantile pleasure and pain. And I think they will 
acknowledge that whether she taught them much or little — ^in 
this advancing age it might be thought little — Miss Leaf taught 
them one thing — to love her; which, as Ben Jonson said of 
the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a ‘‘liberal educa- 
tion.’^ 

Hilary, too. Often, when Hilary’s younger and more rest- 
less spirit chafed against the monotony of her life; when, in- 
stead of wasting her days in teaching small children, she 
would have liked to be learning, learning — every day growing 
wiser and cleverer, and stretching out into that busy, bright, 
active world of which Robert Lyon had told her — then the 
sight of Johanna’s meek face bent over those dirty spelling- 
books would at once rebuke and comfort her. She felt, after 
all, that she would not mind working on forever, so long as 
Johanna still sat there. 

Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her very long, especially 
after Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for money and 
partly for kindliness, had added to her day’s work four even- 
ings a week, when a half-educated mother of one of her little 
pupils came to be taught to write a decent hand, and to keep 
the accounts of her shop. Upoi;i which Selina, highly indig- 
nant, had taken to spending her evenings in the school-room, 
interrupting Hilary’s solitary studies there by many a lamenta- 
tion over the peaceful days when they all sat in the kitchen to- 
gether and kept no servant. For Selina was one of those who 
never saw the bright side of anything till it had gone by. 

“-I’m sure I don’t know how we are to manage with Eliza- 
beth. That greedy — ” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


29 


And growing,^^ suggested Hilary. 

“ I say, that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. 
And as for her clothes — her mother does not keep her even 
decent.^' 

She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year.’^ 
Hilary, how dare you contradict me! I am only stating a 
plain fact.^'’ 

“And I another. But, indeed, I don^t want to talk, 
Selina.'’’ 

“ You never do, except when you are wished to be silent, 
and then your tongue goes like any race-horse.” 

“Does it? Well, like Gilpin’s, 

“ * It carries weight, it rides a race, 

’Tis for a thousand pound !’ 

— and I only wish it were. Heigh-ho! if I could but earn a 
thousand pounds!” 

Selina was too vexed to reply; and for five quiet minutes 
Hilary bent over her Homer, wMch Mr. Lyon had taken such 
pleasure in teaching her, because, he said, she learned it faster 
than any of his grammar-school boys. She had forgotten all 
domestic grievances in a vision of Thetis and the water-nymphs, 
and was repeating to herself, first in the sonorous Greek, and 
then in Pope’s small but sweet English, that catalogue of 
oceanic beauties ending with 

“ Black Janira and Janassa fair, 

^And Amatheia with her amber hair.” 

“ Black, did you say? I’m sure she was as black as a chim- 
ney-sweep all to-day. And her pinafore — ” 

“ Her what? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean — ” 

“ Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks 
of mending, though I gave her needles and thread myself a 
week ago. But she does not know, how to use them any more 
than a baby.” 

“ Possibly nobody ever taught. her.” 

“Yes; she went for a yeai’ to the National School, she says, 
and learned both marking and sewing.” 

“ Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could 
hardly have had time, with all the little hands to look after, as 
her mother says she did. All the better for us. It makes her 
wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats. It was only 
to-day, when that horrid little Jacky Smith hurt liimself so, 
that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, wash his face 


80 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, quite moth- 
erly. Her forte is certainly children.^' 

You always find something to say for her. 

I should be ashamed if I could not find something to say 
for anybody who is ’always abused. 

Another pause — and then Selina returned to the charge. 

“ Have you ever observed, my dte, the extraordinary way 
she has of fastening, or, rather, not fastening her gown be- 
hind? She just hooks it together at the top and at the waist, 
while between there is a — 

Hiatus valde d$flendus. Oh dear me! what shall I do? 
Selina, how can I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not a 
paragon' of perfection? as of course we all are, if we only could 
find it out. ” 

And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and books 
into the chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the wliile lest 
she should be tempted to say something which Selina called 
‘‘ impertinent,^^ which perhaps it Was, from a younger sister 
to an elder. I do not set Hilary up as a perfect character. 
Through sorrow only do people go on to perfection ; and sor- 
row, in its true meaning, this cherished girl had never known. 

But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to sleep 
— ^^they had always slept together since the time the elder sister 
used to walk the room of nights with that puling, motherless 
infant in her arms — Hilary anxiously started the question of 
the little servant. 

‘‘ I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night; and 
yet what can one do? Selina is so very unjust — always expect- 
ing impossibilities. She would like to have Elizabeth at once 
a first-rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive lady’s- 
maid, and all without being taught! She gives her things to 
do, neither waiting to see if they are comprehended by her, nor 
showing her how to do them. Of course the girl stands gap- 
ing and staring, and does not do them, or does them so badly 
that she gets a thorough scolding. ” 

‘‘ Is she very stupidy do you think?” asked Johanna, in un- 
conscious appeal to her pet’s stronger judgment. 

“No, I don’t. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and 
—you would hardly believe it — very nervous. Selina frightens 
her. She gets on exti'emely well with me. ” 

“Any one would, my dear. That is,” added the consci- 
entious elder sister, still afraid of making the “ child ” vain, 
any one whom you took pains with. But do you think we 
ever can make anything out of Elizabeth? Her month ends 
to-morrow. Shall we let her go?” 


MISTRESS Alfp MAID. St 

And perhaps get in her place a story-teller — a tale-bearer 
. — even a thief. ‘ No, no; let us 

“ ‘ Rather bear the ills we have, 

Than fly to others that, we know not of;’ 

and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander. 

“ Oh yes, my dear,"’"' said Johanna, with a shiver. 

. “ By the bye, the first step in the civilization of the Polyne- 
sians was giving them clothes. And I have heard say that 
crime and rags often go together; that a man unconsciously 
feels he owes something to himself and society in the Way of 
virtue when he has a clean face and clean shirt, and a decent 
coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of dressing Elizabeth. 
How many old gowns have we?'’^ 

The nunjiber was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever 
cast off till its very last extremity of decay; the talent that 

“ Gars auld claes look amaist as gude ’s the new ” 

being especially possessed by Hilary. She counted over her 
own wardrobe and Johanna^ s, but found nothing that could be 
spared. • ^ ' 

Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall 
never put on that old brown merino again, though you have 
laid it so carefully by, as if you meant it to come out as fresh 
as ever next winter. No^ Hilary, you must have a new gown, 
and must give Elizabeth your brown merino.^'’ 

Hilary laughed, an^d replied not. 

Now it might be a pathetic indication of a gill who had very 
few clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concern- 
ing hers. Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the 
scenes where it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it, 
Particular dresses were special memorials of her loves, her 
pleasures, her little passing pains: as long as a bit remained of 
the poor old fabric, the sight of it recalled them all. 

This brown merino — in which she had sat two whole winters 
over her Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had 
once stopped to touch and notice, saying what a pretty color 
it was, and how he liked soft-feeling dresses for women — to 
cut up this old brown merino seemed to hurt her so she could 
alrhost have cried. 

Yet what would Johanna • think if she refused? And there 
was Elizabeth absolutely in want of clothes. I must be 
growing very wicked," thought poor Hilary. 

She lay. a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna 
planned and replanned — calculating how, even with the addition 


32 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


of an old cape of her own, which was out of the same piece, 
this hapless gown could be made to fit the gaunt frame of 
Ehzabeth Hand. Her poor kindl}^ brain was in the last ex- 
tremity of muddle, 'when Hilary, with a desperate effort, 
dashed m to the rescue, and soon, made all clear, contriving 
body, skirt, sleeves, and all. 

“You have the best head in the world, my love. I don^t 
know whatever I should do -without you. 

“ Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me a 
kiss; and good-night, Johanna. 

I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridicu- 
lously small things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of 
infinitesimally small things? And in its strange and solemn 
mosaic, the full pattern of which we never see clearly till look- 
ing back on it from far away, dare we say of anything which 
the hand of Eternal Wisdom has put together that it is too 
common or too small? 


CHAPTEE IV. 

While her anxious mistresses were thus talking her over the 
servant lay on her humble bed and slept. They knew she did, 
for they heard her heavy breathing through the thin partition 
wall. Whether, as Hilary suggested, she was too ignorant to 
notice the days of the week or month, or, as Selina thought, 
too stupid to care for anything beyond eating, drinking, and 
sleeping, Elizabeth manifested no anxiety about herself or her 
destmy. She went about her work just as usual; a little 
quicker and readier, now she was becoming familiarized to it; 
but she said nothing. She was undoubtedly a girl of silent and 
undemonstrative nature. 

“ Sometimes still waters run deep,^^ said Miss Hilary. 

“ Nevertheless, there are such things as canals, replied 
Johanna. “ When do you mean to have your little talk with 
her?^^ 

Hilary did not know. She was sitting, rather more tired 
than usual, by the- school-room fire, the little people having 
just departed for their Saturday half -holiday. Before clearing 
off the dehris which they always Igft behind, she stood a min- 
ute at the window, refreshing her eyes with the green, field 
opposite, and the far-away . wood, crowned by a dim white 
monument, visible in fair weather, on which those bright 
brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even in the middle of 
school hours. For the wood and the hill beyond belonged to 
a nobleman^s “ show ’’ estate five miles off — ^the only bit of 


MISTRESS AKt) MAID. 


33 


real landscape beauty that Hilary had ever beheld. There> 
during the last holidays but one, she, her sisters, her nephew, 
and, by his own special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole 
long, merry, midsummer day. She wondered whether such a 
day would ever come again. 

But spring was coming again, anyhow: the field looked 
smiling and green, speckled here and there with white dots, 
which, she opined, might possibly be daisies. She half wished 
she was not too old and dignified to dart across the road, leap 
the smik fence, and run to see. 

“ 1 think, Johanna — Hark! what can that be?^^ 

For at this instant somebody came tearing down the stairs, 
opened the front door, and did — exactly what Hilary had just 
been wisliing to do. 

“ It^s Elizabeth, without hel’ bonnet or shawl, with some- 
thing white flying beliind her. How she is dashing across the 
field! What can she be after? Just look. 

But loud screams from Selma^’s room — the front one — where 
she had been lying in bed all ihorning, quite obliterated the 
little servant from their minds. The two sisters ran hastily- 
upstairs. 

Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation. 
Stop her! Hold her! I^m sure she has gone mad. Lock 
the door — or sheTl come back and murder us all.^^ 

Who — Elizabeth? Was she here? What has been the 
matter.^'’'' 

But it was some time before they could make out anything. 
At last they gathered that Elizabeth had been waiting upon 
Miss Selina, putting vinegar-cloths on her head, and doing 
various things about the room. “ She is very handy when one 
is ill,^^ even Selina allowed. 

‘‘ And I assure you I was talking most kindly to her: about 
the duties of her position, and how she ought to dress better, 
and be more civil-behaved, or else she never could expect to 
keep any place. And she stood in her usual stilky way of 
listening, never answering a word — with her back to me, star- 
ing right out of the window. And I had just said, ^ Elizabeth, 
my girl ^ — indeed, Hilary, I was talking to her in my very 
kindest way — 

IVe no doubt of it — but do get on."^^ 

When she suddenly turned round, snatched a clean towel 
from a chair-back, and another from my head — actually from 
my very head, Johanna — and out she ran. I called after her, 
but she took no more notice than if I had been a stone. And 
she left the door wide open — blowing upon me. Oh, dear; 

8 


84 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


she has given me my death of cold/" And Selina broke into 
piteous complainings. 

Her elder sister soothed her as well as she could, while Hilary • 
ran . down to the front door and looked and inquired every- 
where for Elizabeth. She was not to be seen on field or road; 
and along that quiet terrace not a soul had even perceived her 
quit the house. 

‘‘ It"s a very odd thing,"" said Hilary, returning. ‘‘ What 
can have come over the girl? You are sure, Selina, that you 
said nothing which — "" 

“ Now I know what you are going to say. You are going 
to blame me. Whatever happens in this house you always 
blame me. And perhaps you"re right. Perhaps I am a 
nuisance — a burden — would be far better dead and buried. I 
wish I were!"" 

When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were 
silenced. They quieted her a little, and then went down and 
searched the house all over. 

All was in order — at least in as much order as was to be ex- 
pected the hour before dinner. The bowl of half -peeled pota- 
toes stood on the back kitchen sink;"" the roast was down 
before the fire; the knives were ready for cleaning. Evidently 
Elizabeth"s flight had not been premeditated. 

It"s all nonsense about her going mad. She has as sound 
a head as I have,"" said Hilary to Johanna, who began to look 
seriously uneasy. ‘‘ She might have run away in a fit of pas- 
sion, certainly; and yet that is improbable; her temper is more 
sullen than furious. And, having no lack of common sense, 
she must know that doing a thing like this is enough to make 
her lose her place at once. "" 

Yes,"" said Johanna, mournfully, ‘‘I"m afraid after this 
she must go."" 

“ Wait and see what she has to say for herself,"" pleaded 
Hilary. “ She will surely be back in two or three minutes."" 

But she was not, nor even in two or three hours. 

Her mistresses" annoyance became displeasure, and that 
again subsided into serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased 
talking over and over the incident which gave the sole in- 
formation to be arrived at; rose, dressed, and came down to 
the kitchen. There, after long and anxious consultation, 
Hilary, observing that somebody had better do something,"" 
began to prepare the dinner, as in pre-Elizabethan days; but ' 
the three ladies" appetites were small. 


MISTRESS ^AKD MAID. 


35 


. About three in the afternoon^ Hilary, giving utterance to 
the hidden alarm of all, said, 

“ I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I can 
to Mrs. Hand’s.’^ 

This agreed, she stood consulting with Johanna as to what 
could possibly be said to the mother in case that unfortunate 
child had not gone home, when the kitchen door opened, and 
the culprit appeared. 

Not, however, with the least look of a culprit. Hot she 
was, and breathless; and with her hair down about her ears, 
and her apron rolled up round her waist, presented a most 
forlorn and untidy aspect; but her eyes were bright, and her 
countenance glowing. 

She took a towel from under her arm. There’s one on 
^em — and you’ll get back — the other — when it’s washed. ” 

Having blurted out this, she leaned against the wall, trying 
to recover her breath. > 

Elizabeth! Where have you been? How dared you go? 
Your behavior is disgraceful — most disgraceful, I say. 
Johanna, why don’t you speak to your servant?” (When, 
for remissness in reproving others, the elder sister fell herself 
under reproof, it was always emphatically ‘‘ your sister ” — 

your nephew ” — ^^'your servant.”) 

But, for once. Miss Selina’s sharp voice failed to bring the 
customary sullen look to Elizabeth’s face, and when Miss Leaf, 
in her milder tones, asked where she had been, she answered 
unhesitatingly: 

“ I’ve been down the town.” 

Down the town!” the three ladies cried, in one chorus of 
astonishment. 

“I’ve been as quick as I could, missis. I runned all the 
way, there and back; but it was a good step, and he was 
some ’at heavy, though he is but a little un. ” 

“He! who on earth is lieV^ 

“ Deary me! I never thought of axing;, but his mother lives 
in Hall Street. Somebody saw me carrying him to the doctor, 
and went and told her. Oh! he was welly killed. Miss Leaf — 
the doctor said so; but he’ll do now, and you’ll get your towel 
clean washed to-morrow. ” 

While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, and with such un- 
wonted energy and excitement, Johanna looked as if she 
thought her sister’s fears were true, and the girl had really gone 
mad; but Hilary’s quicker perceptions jumped at a different 
conclusion. 

“ Quiet yourseK, Elizabeth,” said she, taking a firm hold of 


36 


MISTEESS MAID. 


her shoulder^ and making her sifc down, when the rolled-up 
apron dropped, and showed itself all covered with blood spots. 
Selina screamed outright. 

Then Elizabeth seemed to become half conscious that she 
had done something blamable, or was at least a suspected 
character. Her warmth of manner faded; the sullen cloud of 
dogged resistance to authority was raging in her poor dirty 
face, when Hilary, beginning with Now we are not going to 
scold you, but we must hear the reason of this,^"’ contrived by 
adroit questions, and not a few of them, to elicit the whole 
story. 

It appeared that, while standing at Miss Selina^s window, 
Elizabeth had watched three little boys apparently engaged in 
a very favorite amusement of little boys in that field — going, 
quickly behind a horse, and pulling out the longest and hand- 
somest hairs in his tail to make fishing-lines of. She saw the 
animal give a kick, and two of the boys ran away; the other 
did not stir. For a minute or so she noticed a black lump l3dng 
in the grass; then, with the quick instinct for which nobody 
had ever given her credit, she guessed what had happened, and 
did immediately the wisest and only thing possible under the 
ch’cumstances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run across the 
field, bind up the Childs’s head as well as she could, and carry 
it, bleeding and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who lived 
nearly a mile off. 

She did not tell — and they only found it out aftei’ward — how 
she had held the boy while under the doctor^s hands, the skull 
being so badly fractured that the frightened mother fainted at 
the sight: how she had finally carried him home, and left him 
comfortably settled in bed, his senses returned, and his life 
saved. 

“ Ay, my arms do ache above a bit,^^ she said, in answer to 
Miss Leaf^s questions. He wasnT quite a baby — nigh upon 
twelve, I reckon; but then he was very small of Ms age. And 
he looked just as if he was dead — and he bled so.'’^ . • 

Here, just for a second or two, the color left the big girFs 
lips, and she trembled a little. Miss Leaf went to the kitchen 
cupboard, and took out their only bottle of wine — adminis- 
tered in rare doses, exclusively as medicine. 

Drink this, Elizabeth; and then go and wash your face and 
eat your dinner. We will talk to you by and by.^^ 

Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistful stare of intense 
surprise, and then added, ‘‘ Have I done an^hing wrong, 
missis?^^ 

‘‘ I did not say so. But drink this, and don’t talk, child.” 


o MISTRESS AKD MAID. 37 

She was obeyed. By and by Elizabeth disappeared into the 
back kitchen, emerged thence with a clean face, hands, and 
apron, and went about her afternoon business as if nothing had 
happened. 

Her mistresses’ threatened ‘‘ talk ” with her never came 
about. What, indeed, could they say? No doubt the little 
servant had broken the strict letter of domestic law by running 
off in that highly eccentric and inconvenient way; but, as 
Hilary tried to explain by a series of most ingenious ratiocina- 
tions, she had fulfilled, in the spirit of it, the very highest law 
— ^that of charity. She had also shown prompt courage, de- 
cision, practical and prudent forethought, and, above all, en- 
tire self-forgetfulness. 

‘‘ And I should like to know,’f said Miss Hilary, warming 
with her subject, if those are not the very qualities which go 
to constitute a hero.” 

“ But we don’t want a hero; we want a maid-of-all-work. ” 

I’ll tell you what we want, Selina. We want a tooman — , 
that is, a girl with the making of a good woman in her. If 
we can find that, all the rest will foUow. For my part, I 
#ould rather take this child, rough as she is, but with her 
truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindliness of heart, and evi- 
dent capability of both self-control and self-devotedness than 
the most finished servant we could find. My advice is — keep 
her.” 

This settled the matter, since it was a curious fact that^the 

advice ” of the youngest Miss Leaf was, whether they knew 
it or not, almost equivalent to a family ukase. 

When Elizabeth had brought in the tea things, which she did 
with especial care, apparently wishing to blot out the memory 
of the morning’s escapade by astonishingly good behavior for 
the rest of the day. Miss Leaf called her, and asked if she knew 
that her month of trial ended this day. 

Yes, ma’am,” with the strict formal courtesy, something 
between that of the old-world family domestic — as her mother 
might have been to the Miss Elizabeth Something she was 
named after — and the abrupt dip ” of the modern national 
school-girl, which constituted Elizabeth Hand’s sole experience 
of manners. 

If you had not been absent I should have gone to speak to 
your mother to-day. Indeed, Miss Hilary was going when you 
came in; but it would have been with a very different inten- 
tion from what we had in the morning. However, that is not 
likely to happen again.” 

Eh?” said Elizabeth, inquiringly. 


38 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily at her two sisters. 
•It was always a trial to her shy nature to find herself the 
mouth-piece of the family; and this same shyness made it still 
more difficult to break through the stiff barriers which seemed 
to rise up between her, a gentlewoman well on in years, and 
this coarse working-girl. She felt, as she often complained, 
that with the kindest intentions she did not quite know how to 
talk to Elizabeth. 

My sister means, said Hilary, that as we are not likely 
to have little boys half killed in the field every day, she trusts 
you will not be running away again as you did this morning. 
She feels sure that you would not do such a thing, putting us 
all to so great annoyance and uneasiness for any less cause 
than such as happened to-day. You promise that?"’^ 

“Yes, Miss Hilary. # 

“ Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves. Hay 
— feeling, in spite, of Selina^s warning nudge, that she had 
hardly been kind enough — “ we rather praise than blame you, 
Elizabeth. And if you like to stay with us, and will do your 
best to improve, we are willing to keep you as our servant. 

“ Thank you, ma^am. Thank you. Miss Hilary. Yes, PU 
stop. ” 

She said no more, but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind 
were relieved — (“ So,-’^ thought Hilary, “ she was not so in- 
different to us as we imagined ”) — and bustled back into her 
kitchen. 

“ How for the clothing of her,^^ observed Miss Leaf, also 
looking much relieved that the decision was over. “ You know 
what we agreed upon, and there is certainly no time to be lost. 
Hilary, my dear, suppose you bring down your brown merino?^^ 

Hilary went without a word. 

People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep .to- 
gether — loving one another and sympathizing mth one another 
ever so deeply and dearly — nevertheless inevitably have mo- 
mentary seasons when the intense solitude in which we all live, 
and must expect ever to live, at the depth of our being, forces 
itself painfully iipon the heart. Johanna must have had many 
such seasons when Hilary was a child; Hilary had one now. 

She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket — a 
hiding-place at once little likely to be searched and harmless if 
discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer 
day: 

“ Dear Miss Hilary, — T o-morrow, then, I shall come. 

Yours Truly, Korert Lyon.^^^ 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


39 


The only scrap of note she had ever received; ne always 
wrote to Johanna — as regularly as ever^ or more so, now 
Ascot t was gone — ^but only to Johanna. She read over the 
two lines, wondered where she • should keep them now that 
Johanna might not notice them, and then recoiled, as if the 
secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved her so well. 

“ But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could. 
She thinks me quite happy; so I am; and yet — oh, if I did not 
miss him so!^^ 

And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over 
her began again. Let us not blame her. God made all our 
human needs. God made love; not merely affection, but act- 
ual love — ^the necessity to seek and find out some other being; 
not another, but the complement of one^s self— the other 
half who brings rest and strength for weakness, sympathy in 
aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other person 
ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom 
found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it. ^ Johanna 
had done so. But then she had been young, and was now 
growing old; and Hilary was only twenty, with a long life be- 
fore her. Poor child! let us not blame her. 

She was not in the least sentimental, her natural disposition 
inclining her to be more than cheerful — actually gay. She 
soon recovered herself; and when, a short time after, she 
stood, scissors in hand, demonstrating how very easy it was to 
make something out of nothing, her sisters never suspected 
how very near tears had lately been to those bright eyes which 
were always the sunshine of the house. 

“You are giving yourself a world of trouble, said Selina. 
“ If I were you I would just make over the dress to Elizabeth, 
and let her do what she could with it.^^ 

“ My dear, I always find I give myself twice the trouble by 
expectiQg people to do what they canT do. I have to do it 
myself afterward. Prove how a child who can’t even handle a 
needle and thread is competent to make a gown for herself, 
and I shall be most happy to secede in her favor. ” 

“Nay,” put in the eldest sister, afraid of a collision of 
words, “ Selina is right; if you do not teach Elizabeth to make 
her own gowns, how can she learn?” 

“ Johanna, you are the brilliantest of women! and you know 
you don’t like the parlor littered with rags and cuttings. You 
wish to get rid of me for the evening? Well, I’ll go! Hand 
me the work-basket and the bundle, and I’ll give my first les- 
son in dress-making to our South Sea Islander.” 

But Fate stood in the way of Miss Hilary’s good intentions. 


40 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 

She found Elizabeth, not as was her wont, always busy over 
the perpetual toil of those who have not yet learned the mys- 
terious art of arrangement and order, nor, as sometimes, 
hanging sleepily over the kitchen .fire, waiting for bed-time, 
but actually sitting — sitting down at the table. Her candle 
was flaring on one side of her; on the other was the school- 
room inkstand, a scrap of waste paper, and a pen. But she 
was not writing; she sat with her he^ on her hands, in an at- 
titude of disconsolate idleness, so absorbed that she seemed not 
to hear Hilary^s approach. 

I did not know you could write, Elizabeth. ” 

No more I can,^^ was the answer, in the most doleful of 
voices. “ It bean^ no good. Eve forgotten all about’ it. 
letters wonna join. 

‘‘ Let me look at them. ^^ And Hilary tried to contemplate . 
gravely the scrawled and blotted page, which looked very 
much as if a large spider had walked into the ink-bottle and 
then walked out again on a tom’ of investigation* "What did 
you want to write asked she, suddenly. 

Elizabeth blushed violently. “ It was the woman, Mrs. 
Cliff e, t^ little lad^s mother, you know; she wanted somebody 
to write to her husband as is at work in Birmingham, and I 
said I would. IM learned at the National, but INe forgotten 
it all. I^m just as Miss Selina says — I^m good for nowt.^^ 

Come, come, never fret;^^ for there was a sort of choke in 
the gii’Bs voice. There^s many a person who never learned 
to write. But I don^t see why you should not learn. Shall I 
teach you?’^ 

Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, succeeded one another 
plain as light in Elizabethans eyes; but she only said, Thank 
you. Miss Hilary. 

“ Very weU. I have brought you an old gown of mine, and 
was going to show you how to make it up for yourself, but I’ll 
look over your writing instead. Sit down, and let me see what 
you can do. ” 

In a state of nervous trepidation pitiful to behold, Elizabeth 
took the pen. Terrible scratching resulted; blots ninumer- 
able; and one fatal deluge of ink, which startled from their 
seats both mistress and maid, and made Hilary thankful that 
she had taken off her better gown for a common one, as, with 
sad thriftiness, the Misses Leaf always did of evenings. 

When Elizabeth saw the mischief she had done, her contri- 
tion and humility were unbounded. “No, Miss Hilary, you 
can’t make nothin’ of me. I be too stupid. I’ll give it up.” 

“Nonsense!” And the bright, active little lady looked 


£STRESS AND MAID; 


4i 


steadily into the heavy face of this undeveloped girl, half 
child, half woman, until some of her own spirit seemed to be 
reflected there. Whether the excitement of the morning had 
roused her, or her mistresses^ kindness had touched Elizabeth's 
heart, and — as in most women — the heart was the key to the 
intellect; or whether the gradual daily influence of her changed 
life during the last month had been taking effect, now for the 
first time to appear, certain it is that Hflary had never per- 
ceived before what an extremely intelligent face it was — what 
good sense was indicated in the well-shaped head and forehead 
— what tenderness and feeling in the deep-set gray eyes. 

Nonsense, repeated she. ‘‘Never give up anything; I 
never would. Wee’ll try a different plan, and begin from the 
beginning, as I do with my little scholars. Wait while I fetch 
a copy-book out of the parlor press. 

She highly amused her sisters with a description of what she 
called “ her newly instituted Polynesian Academy, returned, 
and set to work to guide thp rough, coarse hand through the 
mysteries of calligraphy. 

To say this was an easy task would not be true. Nature^s 
own laws and limits make the using of faculties which have 
been unused for generations very difficult at first. To suppose 
that a working-man> the son of working-men, who applies 
himself to study, does it with as little trouble as your upper- 
class children, who have been unconsciously undergoing edu- 
cation ever since the cradle, is a great mistake. All honor, 
therefore, to those who do attempt, and to ever so small a de- 
gree succeed in the best and surest culture of all, self-culture. 

Of this honor Elizabeth deserved her share. 

“ She is stupid enough,^-’ Hilary confessed, after the lesson 
was over; “ but there is a dogged perseverance about the girl 
which I actually admire. She blots her fingers, her nose, her 
apron, but she never gives in; and she sticks to the grand 
principle of one thing at a time. I think she * did two whole 
pages of a^s, and really performed them satisfactorily, before 
she asked to go on to b^s. Yes, I believe she will do.^^ 

“ I hope she will do her work, anyhow, said Selina, break- 
ing into the conversation rather crossly. “ P’m sure I donT 
see the good of wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write 
when there^s so much to be done in the house by one and all of 
us from Monday morning till Saturday night. 

“ Ay, thaPs it,^'’ answered Hilary, meditatively. “ I don^t 
see how I ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired 
of nights when the work is all done; sheTl be dropping asleep 
with the pen hi her hand— I haye done it myself before now/^ 


42 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to “ improve her: 
mind,^^ and make herself a little more equal and companion- 
able to another mind she knew, she had, after her daily house 
cares and her six hours of school-teaching, attempted at nine 
p. M. to begin close study on her own account. And though 
with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, still, as she told 
Johanna, she could well understand how slow was the ‘‘ march 
of intellect (a phrase which had just then come up) among 
day-laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these 
mechanics^ institutions, which were now talked so much of, to 
put any new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish 
and stupid with hard bodily labor. 

‘‘ Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy on a Sun- 
day?^"’ and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially 
Johanna. 

hTow the Misses Leaf were old-fashioned country-folk, who 
lived before the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had 
ever got into the English language. They simply “ remem- 
bered the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;’’ they arranged so as to 
make it for all the household a day of rest; and they went 
regularly to church once — sometimes Selina and Hilary went 
twice. For the intervening hours, their usual custom was to 
take an afternoon walk in the fields : begun chiefly for Ascott’s. 
sake, to keep the lad out of mischief, and put into his mind 
better thoughts than he was likely to get from his favorite. 
Sunday recreation of sitting on the wall throwing stones. 
After he left for London there was Elizabeth to be thought of; 
and they decided that the best Sabbath duty for the little serv- 
ant was to go and see her mother. So they gave her every 
Sunday afternoon free, only requiring that she should be at 
home punctually after church-time, at eight o’clock. But 
from thence till bed-time was a blank of two hours, which, 
Hilary had noticed Elizabeth not unfrequently spent in dozing: 
oyer the fire. 

‘‘ And I wonder,” said she, giving the end of her long 
meditation out loud, ‘‘ whether going to sleep is not as much 
Sabbath-breaking as learning to write? What do you say, 
Johanna?” 

Johanna, simple. God-fearing woman as she was, to whom 
faith and love came as natural as the breath she drew, had 
never perplexed herself with the question. She only smiled 
acquiescence. But Selina was greatly shocked. 'I’eaching to 
write on a Sunday ! Bringing the week-day work into the day 
of rest! Doing one’s own pleasure on the holy day! She 
thought it exceedingly wrong. Suph a thing had neyer been 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


43 


heard of in their house. Whatever else might be said of them, 
the Leafs were always a respectable family as to keeping Sun- 
day. Nobody could say that even poor Henry — 

But here Selina^ s torrent of words stopped. 

When conversation revived, Hilary, who had been at first 
half annoyed and half amused, resumed her point seriously. 

‘‘I might say that writing isn^t Elizabeth's week-day work, 
and that teaching her is not exactly doing my own pleasure; 
but I won^t creep out of the argument by a quibble. The 
question is. What is keeping the Sabbath-day ‘ holy?'’ I say — 
and I stick to my opinion — that it is by making it a day of 
worship, a rest day — a cheerful and happy day — and by doing 
as much good in it as we can; and, therefore, I mean to teach 
Elizabeth on a Sunday.-’^ 

‘‘ SheTl never understand it. SheTl consider it ‘ work. ’ 

‘‘ And if she did, work is a more religious thing than idle- 
ness. I am sure I often feel that, of the two, I should be less 
sinful in digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting mending 
stockings in my parlor, than in keeping Sunday as some, people 
do — going to church, genteelly in my best clothes, eating a 
huge Sunday dinner, and then nodding over a good book, or 
taking a regular Sunday nap, till bed-time.'’"’ 

Hush, child said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary’s 
cheeks were red, and her voice angry. She was taking the 
hot, youthful part, which, in its hatred of shams and forms, 
sometimes leads — and not seldom led poor Hilary — a little too 
far on the other side. “I think,’'’ Miss Leaf added, “that 
our business is with ourselves, and not with "our neighbors. 
♦•Let us keep the Sabbath according to our conscience. Only I 
would take care never to do anything which jarred against my 
neighbor’s feelings. I would, like Paul, ‘ eat no meat while 
the world standeth’ rather than ‘make my brother to 
offend:’ ” 

Hilary looked in her sister’s sweet, calm face, and the anger 
died out of her own. 

“ Shall I give up my academy?” she said, softly. 

■ “No, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath-day, 
and teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. 
Make her understand that, and you need not be afraid of any 
harm ensuing. ” 

“ You never will make her understand,” said Selina, sul- 
lenly. “ She is only a servant. ’ 

“Nevertheless, I’ll try.” ’ 

Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simphfying to 
the young servant’s comprehension this great question, involv- 


44 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


ing so many points — siicli as the following of the spirit and the 
letter, the law of duty and the compulsion of love, which, as 
she spoke, seemed opening out so widely and awfully that she 
herself involuntarily shrunk from it, and wondered that poor 
finite creatures should ever presume to squabble about it at 
all. 

But one thing the girl did understand — her young mistresses 
kindness. She stood watching the little delicate hand that had 
so patiently guided hers, and now wrote copy after copy for 
her future benefit. At last she said, 

You^re taking a deal o^ trouble wi^ a poor wench, and it's 
very kind in a lady hke you. 

Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True 
enough, it was kind,^^ and she was a lady;^^ and between 
her and Mrs. Hand^s rough daughter was an mimistakable 
difference and distinction. That Elizabeth perceived it was 
proved by her growing respectfulness of manner — the more 
respectful, it seemed, the more she herself improved. Yet 
Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply than was 
unavoidable the great gulf that lies, and ever must lie — not so 
much between mistress and servant, in their abstract relation — • 
(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority is ordained 
of God) — but between the educated and the ignorant, the 
coarse and the refined. 

‘‘Well,^^ she said, after a pause of consideration, “you 
always have it in your power to repay my ' kindness,^ as you 
call it. The cleverer you become, the more useful you will be 
to me; and the .more good you grow, the better I shall like 
you.^^ 

Elizabeth smiled — that wonderfully bright, sudden smile 
which seemed to cover over all her plainness of featm’e. 

“ Once upon a time,^^ Hilary resumed by and by, V when 
England was very different from what it is now, Enghsl^ ladies 
used to have what they call ‘ bower-women,-’ whom they took 
as girls, and brought up in their service; teaching them all 
sorts of things — cooking, sewing, spinning, singing, and, prob- 
ably, except that the ladies of that time were very ill educated 
themselves, to read and write also. They used to spend part 
of everyday among their bower-women; and as people can 
only enjoy the company of those with whom they have some 
sympathy in common, we must conclude that — 

Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she must be discoursing 
miles above the head of her little- bower-maiden, and that, per- 
haps, after all, her theory would be best kept to herself, and 
omy demonstrated practically. 


MISTRESS AKE MAID. 


45 


Soj Elizabeth, if I spend a little of. my time in teaching 
you, you must grow up my faithful and. attached bower- 
maiden."’^ 

‘‘ I’ll grow up anything, Aliss Hilary, if it’s to please you,” 
was the answer, given with a Smothered intensity that quite 
startled the young mistress. 

“ I do believe the girl is getting fond of me,” said she, half 
touched, half laughing, to Johanna. If so, we shall get on. 
It is just as with our school-children, you know. We have to 
seize hold of their hearts first, and their heads afterward. Now 
Elizabeth’s head may be uncommonly tough, but I do believe 
she likes me.” ^ 

Johanna smiled; but she would not for the world have said 
— never encouraging the smallest vanity in her child — ^that she 
did not think this circumstance so very remarkable. 


CHAPTER V. 

A HOUSEHOLD exclusively composed of women has its ad- 
vantages and its disadvantages. It is apt to become somewhat 
• narrow in judgment, morbid in feeling, absorbed in petty inter- 
f, ests, and bounding its vision of outside things to the small 
horizon Which it sees from its own fireside. But, on the other 
1: hand, by this fireside often abides a settled peace and purity, a 

’ long-suffering, generous forbearance, and an enduring affee- 
’ \ tionateness which the other sex can hardly comprehend or 
V credit. Men will not believe, what is nevertheless the truth, 
\ that we can “ stand alone ” much better than they ban; that 
‘ we can do without them far easier, afid with less deterioration 
of character, than they can do without us; that we are better 
\ able to provide for ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in 
[ short, strange as it may appear, that we have more real self- 
/ sustaining independence than they. 

/ Of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of man 
I and woman united, no one will be insane enough to deny; I 

[ am speaking of the substitute for it, which poor humanity has 

so often to fall back upon and make the best of — a better best 
» very frequently than what appears best in the eyes of the 
i world. In- truth, many a troubled, care-ridden, wealthy fam- 
i ily, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in splendid formalities, 

' might have envied that quiet, humble maiden household of the 
Misses Leaf, where their only trial was poverty, and their only 
grief the one which they knew the worst of, and had met 
‘ patiently for many a year— poor Selina’s way.” 

^ I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth Hand that her fii’st 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


4e 

place — the home in which she received her first impressions-— 
was this feminine establishment, simple and regular, in which 
was neither waste nor disorder allowed. Good, too, that while 
her mistresses’ narrow means restricted her in many things en- 
joyed by servants in richer families, their interests, equally 
narrow, caused to be concentrated upon herself a double 
measure of thought and care. She became absolutely ‘‘ one 
of the family,” sharing in all its concerns. From, its small 
and few carnal luxuries — such as the cake, fruit, or pot of 
preserves, votive offerings from pupils’ parents — up to the 
newspaper and the borrowed book, nothing was either literally 
or metaphorically ‘‘ locked up ” from Elizabeth. 

This grand question of lockmg-up had been discussed in full 
conclave the day after her month of probation ended, the sis- 
ters taking opposite sides, as might have been expected. 
Selina was for the immediate introduction of a locksmith and 
a key-basket. 

“ While she was only on trial it did not so much signify; 
besides, if it did, we h^ only buttons on the press-doors; but 
now she is our regular servant we ought to institute a regular 
system of authority. How can she respect a family that never 
locks up anything?” 

How can we respect a servant from whom we lock up 
everything?” 

Eespect a servant! What do you mean, Hilary?” 

“ I mean that if I did not respect a servant I would be very 
sorry to keep her one day in any house of mine. ' ’ 

“ Wait till you’ve a house of your own to keep, miss,” said 
Selina, crossly. I never heard such nonsense. Is that the 
way you mean to behave to Elizabeth? leave everything open 
to her — clothes, books, money; trust her with all your berets; 
treat her as your most particular friend?” 

‘‘ A girl of fifteen would be rather an inconvenient partic- 
ular friend! And I have happily few secrets to trust her with. 
But if I could not trust her with our coffee, tea, sugar, and so 
on, and bring her up from the very first in the habit of being 
trusted, I would recommend her being sent away td-morrow.” 

'' Very fine talking; and what do you say, Johanna? — if that 
is not an unnecessary question after Hilary lias given her opin- 
ion.” 

“ I think,” replied the elder sister, taking no notice of the 
long-familiar innuendo, that in this case Hilary is right. 
How people ought to manage in great houses I can not say, 
but in our. small house it will be easier and better not to alter 
our simple ways. Trusting the girl, if she is a good girl, will 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 47 

Only make her the more trustworthy; if she is bad^ we shall 
the sooner find it out and let her go/^ 

But Elizabeth did not go. A 3^ear passed; two years; her 
wages were raised, and with them her domestic position. 
From a ‘‘ girl she was converted into a regular servant; her 
pinafores gave place to grown-up gowns and aprons, and her 
rough head, at Miss Selina^ s incessant instance, was concealed 
by a cap; — caps being considered by that lady as the proper 
and indispensable badge of servanthood. 

To say that during her transition state, or even now that 
she had reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no 
trouble, would be stating a self-evident improbabihty. What 
young lass under seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty 
of trouble to her natural guardians? Who can “put an 
old head on young shoulders or expect from girls at the 
most unformed and unsatisfactory period, of life that complete 
moral and mental discipline, that unfailing self-control, that 
perfection of temper and everything else, which, of course, all 
mistresses always have? 

I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few — nay, not 
a few — most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, 
no p‘upil its school-teachers more than she tried her three 
mistresses at intervals. She was often thoughtless and care- 
less, brusque in her manner, slovenly in her dress; sometimes 
she was downright “ bad — filled full, as some of her elders 
and betters are at all ages, with absolute naughtiness; when 
she would sulk for hours and days together, and make the 
whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant can make a 
family small as that of the Misses Leaf. 

But still they never lost what Hilary termed their “re- . 
spect for Ehzabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a 
meanness, or an act of deception or dishonesty. They took 
her faults as we must take the surface-faults of all connected 
with us — patiently rather than resentfully, seeking to correct 
rather than to punish. And though there were difficult ele- 
ments in the household, such as there being three mistresses 
to be obeyed — the youngest mistress a thought too lax, and the 
second one undoubtedly too severe — still no girl could live with 
these high-principled, much-enduring women without being 
impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest 
to understand — the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that 
which is the only effectual la^w to bring out good tind restrain 
evil, tlie law of loving kindness. 

Two fracases, however, must be cliroiiicled, for after botii 
the girTs dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when 


48 


MISTRESS AOT MAID. 


Mrs. Oliffe, mother of Tommy CliSe, who was nearly killed in 
the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, and in 
the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth stray shillmgs which 
were never returned, was forbidden the house, Elizabeth re- 
sented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week after- 
ward. 

The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth's 
destiny ^Vas vfhen a volRme of Scott ^s novels, having been 
missing for some days, was found hidden in her bed, -and she 
lying awake reading it, was thus ignominiously discovered at 
eleven p. m. by Miss Selina, in consequence of the gleam of 
candle-light from under her door. 

It was true, neither of these errors were actual moral crimes. 
Hilary even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by 
declaring they had their source in actual virtues; that a girl 
who would stint herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any 
liking she had, even if unworthy, had a creditable amount of 
both self-denial and fidelity in her disposition. Also that a 
tired-out maid-of -all-work who was kept awake of nights by 
her ardent appreciation of the “ Heart of Mid-Lothian must 
possess a degree of both intellectual and moral capacity which 
deserved cultivation rather than blame. And though ' this 
surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not, 
of course, be allowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took 
every opportunity. of not only giving the young servant books to 
read, but of talking to her about them. And also that a large 
proportion of these books were, to Miss*Selina^s unmitigated 
horror, absolutely fiction! — stories, novels, even poetry — ^books 
that Hilary liked herself — books that had built up in her her 
own passionate dream of life; wherein all the women were 
faithful, tender, heroic, self -devoted, and all the men were — 
something not unlike Robert Lyon. 

Did she do harm? Was it, as Selina and even Johanna said 
sometimes, “ dangerous thus to put before Ehzabeth a 
standard of ideal perfection, a quixotic notion of life — ^life in 
its full purpose, power, and beauty — such as otherwise never 
could have crossed the mind of this poor working-girl, born of 
parents who, though respectable and worthy, were in no re- 
spect higher than the common working class? I will not argue 
the point; I am not making Elizabeth a text for a sermon; I 
am simply writing her stoiy. 

One thing was certain — that by degrees the young woman^s 
faidts lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable 
bad temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made 
her and Miss Selina sometimes not on speaking terms for a 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


49 


week, together. But she simply sulked;’^ she never grum- 
bled or was pert; and she did her work just as usual, with a 
kmd of dogged struggle not only against the superior powers, 
but against something within herself much harder to fight with. 

She makes me feel moro sorry for her than angry with 
her/’ Miss Leaf would sometimes say, coming out of the 
kitchen with that grieved face which was the chief sign of dis- 
pleasure her sweet nature ever betrayed. She will have up- 
hill work through life, like us all, and more than many of us, 
poor child 

But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the rest 
of the family, learned to put up with Miss Sehna, who, on her 
i3art, kept a sort of armed neutrality. And once, when a short 
but sharp illness of Johanna's shook the household from its 
even tenor, startled everybody out of their little tempers, and 
made them cling together and work together in a sort of fear- 
stricken union against one common grief, Selina allowed that 
they might have gone further and fared worse on the day they 
engaged Elizabeth. 

Alter this .illness of his aunt Ascott came home. It was 
his first visit since he had gone to London; Mr. Ascott, he 
said, objected to holidays. But now, from some unexplained 
feeling, Johanna in her convalescence longed after the boy — 
no longer a boy, however, but nearly twenty, and looking fully 
his age. How proud his aunts were to march him up the 
town, and hear everybody's congratulations on his good looks 
and polished manners! It was the old story — old as the hills! 
I do not pretend to invent anything new. Women, especially 
maiden aunts, will repeat the tale till the end of time so long 
as they have youths belonging to them on whom to expend 
their natural tendency to clinging fondness, and ignorant, 
innocent hero-worsliip. The Misses Leaf — ay, even Selina, 
whose irritation against the provoking' boy was quite mollified 
by the elegant young man — were no wiser than their neighbors. 

But there was one person in the household who still obsti- 
nately refused to bow the knee to Ascott. Whether it was, as 
psychologists might explain, some instinctive polarity in their 
natures, or whether, having once conceived a prejudice, Eliza- 
beth held on to it like grim death, still there was the same 
unspoken antagonism between them. The young fellow took 
little notice of her except to observe “ that she hadn't grown 
any handsomer;" but Elizabeth watched him with a keen 
severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, Avith a passive 
pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on 
the family habits, all the little self -pleasing ways which Ascott 


to 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


had been so used to of old that neither he nor his aunts appar- 
ently recognized them as selfish. 

“ I canna bear to see him can not” suggested her 
mistress, who, not seeing any reason why Elizabeth should not 
speak the queen^s English as well as herself, had instituted h’s, 
and stopped a few more glaring provincialisms). I can not 
bear to see him. Miss Hilary, lolling on the arm-chair when 
missis looks so tired and pale, and sitting up o’ nights, burning 
double fires, and going upstairs at last with his boots on, 
waking everybody. I dunnot like it, I say.” 

“You forget; Mr. Ascott has his studied He must work 
for his next examination. ” ' 

“ Why doesn’t he get up of a morning, then, instead of. 
lying ill bed, and keeping the breakfast about till ten? Why 
can’t he do his learning by daylight? Daylight’s cheaper than 
mold candles, and a deal better for the eyes. ” 

Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a truth, and to try and 
make it out otherv/ise, even for the dignity of the family, was 
something from which her honest nature revolted. Besides, 
the sharp-sighted servant would be the first to detect the in- 
consistency of one law of right for the parlor and another for 
the kitchen. So she took refuge in silence and in the apple- 
jiudding she was making. 

But she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving As- 
cott, by way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue of 
aunt could bestow. And this chance occurred the same after- 
noon, when the other two aunts had gone out to tea to a house 
which Ascott voted “ slow ” and declined going to. She re- 
mained to make tea for him, and in the meantime took him 
for a constitutional up and down the public walks hard by. 

" Ascott listened at . first very good-humoredly, once or twice 
calling her “a dear little prig” in his patronizing way — he 
was rather fond of patronizing his aunt Hilary. But when 
she seriously spoke of his duties, as no longer a boy, but a man, 
a^Eo ought now to assume the true, manly right of thinking 
for and taking care of other people, especially his aunts, As- 
cott began to flush up angrily. 

“Now stop that. Aunt Hilary; I’ll not have you coming 
Mr. Lyon over me.” 

“ What do you mean?” 

Eor of late Ascott had said very little about Mr. Lyon — not 
half so much as Mr. Lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to 
Miss Leaf, told her about her nephcAV Ascott: 

“ I mean that I’ll not be preached to like that by a woman. 
It’s bad enough to have to stand it from a man; but then 


MISTRESS AKD MAID, 


SI 

Lyon^s a real sharp fellow, who knows the world, which women 
don't, Aunt Hilary. Besides, he coaches me in my Latin and 
Greek; so I let him pitch into me now and then. But I won't 
let you; so just stop it, will you?" 

Something new in Ascott's tone — speaking more of the re- 
sentful fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the boy — 
frightened his little aunt, and silenced her. By and by she 
took comfort from the reflection that, as the lad had in his 
anger betrayed, he had beside him in London a monitor whose 
preaching would be so much wiser and 'more effectual than her 
own that she determined to say no morew 

The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon's name — ^for, time and ab- 
sence have produced their natural effect, except when his let- 
ters came, he was seldom talked about now — set Hilary think- 
ing. 

‘‘ Do you go to see him often?" she said at last. 

Who — Mr. Lyon?" And Ascott, delighted to escape into 
a fresh subject, became quite cheerful and communicative. 

Oh, bless you! he wouldn't care for my going to him. He 
lives in a two-pair back, only one room, ‘ which serves him for 
kitchen, and parlor, and all;' dines at a cook-shop for nine- 
pence a day, and makes his own porridge night and morning. 
He told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. But he 
must be precious hard up sometimes. However, as he con- 
trives to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes 
at the university, and carry off the very best honors going 
there, nobody asks any questions. That's the good of Lon- 
don, Aunt Hil9,ry, " said the young fellow, drawing himself up 
with great wisdom. Only look like a gentleman, behave 
yom’self as such, and nobody asks any questions. " 

Yes," vaguely acquiesced Aunt Hilary. And then her 
mind wandered yearningly to the solitary student in the two- 
pair back. He might labor and suffer; he might be lli; he 
might die, equally solitary, and nobody would ask any ques- 
tions." This phase of London life let a new light in upon her 
mind. The letters to Johanna had been chiefly filled with 
whatever he thought would interest them. - With .his char- 
acteristic Scotch reserve he had said very little about himself, 
except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had “ done 
pretty well " at college this term, and meant to ‘‘go in for 
more work " immediately. 

What this work entailed — how much more toil, how much 
more poverty — Hilary knew not. Perhaps eveii his successes, 
which Ascott went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts 


I 


52 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 

than the picture of the face she. knew,' sharpened with illness, 
wasted with hard work and solitary care. 

‘‘ And I can not help him — I can not help him!^^ was her 
bitter cry; until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the 
womanly nature asserted itself. She thought if it had been^ 
or if it were to be, her blessed lot to be chosen by Robert Lyon, 
how she would take care of him! what an utter slave she 
would be to liim! How no penury would frighten .her, no 
household cares oppress or humble her, if done for him and 
for his comfort. To her brave heart no battle of life seemed 
too long or too sore if only it were fought for him and at his 
side. And as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts 
across her path, and the misty autumn night began to close in, 
nature herself seemed to plead in unison with the craving of 
her heart, which sighed that youth and summer last not always; 
and that, ‘‘be it ever so humble, as the song says, there is 
no place so bright and beautiful as the fireside of a loveful 
home. 

While the aimt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of 
very , different things, their own fire, newly lighted— Ascott 
liked a fire — was blazing away in solitary glory for the benefit 
of all passers-by. At length one — a gentleman — stopped at 
the gate, and looked in, then took a turn to the end of the ter- 
race, and stood gazing in once more. The solitude of the room 
apparently troubled hiha; twice his hand Was on the latch be- 
fore he opened it and knocked at the front door. 

, Elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him. 

‘ ‘ Is Miss Leaf at home ? ^ ^ 

“No, sir. 

“ Is she well? Are all the family well?’^ and he stepped 
right into the passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot. 

(“I should ha’ shimmed the door in his face,” was Eliza- 
beth’s comment afterward, “only, you see. Miss Hilary, he 
looked a real gentleman. ”) 

The stranger and she mutually examined one another. 

“I think I have heard of you,” said he, smiling. “You 
are Miss Leaf’s servant — Elizabeth Hand. ” 

Yes, sir,” still grimly, and with a determined grasp of the 
door-handle. 

“ If your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you 
allow me to wait for them? I am an old friend of theirs. My‘ 
name is Lyon.” 

Now Elizabeth was far too much one of the family not to 
have heard of such a person. And his knowing her was a 
tolerable proof of his identity; besides, unconsciously, the girl 


MISTRESS AHt> MAID. 


53 


was influenced by that look and mien of true gentlemanhood, 
as courteous to the poor maid-of-all-work as.he would have 
been to any duchess born; and by that bright, sudden .smile, 
which came like sunshine over his face, and, like sunshine, 
warmed and opened the heart of every one that met it. 

It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxes her Cerberus keej)- 
ing of the door, and even went so far as to inform him that 
Miss Leaf and Miss Selina were out to tea,^ but Miss Hilary and 
Mr. Ascott would be at home shortly. ‘ He was welcome to 
wait in the parlor if he liked. 

Afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, she 
made various errands to go in and look at him; but she had 
not courage to address him, and he never spoke to her. He 
sat by the window, gazing gut into the gloaming. Except 
Just turning his he^ at her entrance, she did not thipk he had 
once stirred the whole time. 

Elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening for 
her young mistress's familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed to 
have listened too, for before she could reach it the door was 
already opened. 

There was a warm greeting — to her great relief; for she 
knew she had broken the domestic laws in admitting a stranger 
unawares — and then Elizabeth heard them all three go into the 
parlor, where they remained talking, without ringing for either 
tea or candles, a full quarter of an hour. 

Mi^ Hilary at last came out, but, much to Elizabeth's sur- 
prise, went straight up into her bedroom, without entering the 
kitchen at all. 

It was some minutes before she descended and then, after 
giving her orders for tea, and seeing that all was arranged with 
special neatness, she stood absently by the kitchen fire. Eliza- 
beth noticed how Avonderf ully bright her eyes were, and what 
a soft, happy smile she had. She noticed it, because she had 
never seen Miss Hilary look exactly like that before; and she 
never did again. 

‘‘ Don't you be troubling yourself with waiting about here," 
she said; and her mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. 
“I'll get the tea all right. Miss Hilary. Please go back into 
the parlor. " 

^ Hilary went in. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Elizabeth got tea ready with miwonted diligence and con- 
siderable excitement. Any visitor was a rare occurrence in 


54 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


this very quiet family; but a gentleman visitor—a young gen- 
tleman too — was a remarkable fact> arousing both interest and 
curiosity. For in the latter quality this girl of seventeen could 
scarcely be expected to be deficient; and as to the former, she 
had so completely identified herself with the family she served 
that all their concerns were her concerns also. Her acute com- 
ments on their few guests and on their little scholars sometimes 
amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on the books she read; 
but, as neither were ever put forward intrusively or imperti- 
nently, she let them pass, and only laughed over them with 
Johanna in private. 

In speaking of these said books, and the questions they led 
to, it was not likely but that mistress and maid — one aged 
twenty-two, and the other seventeen — should occasionally light 
upon a subject rather interesting to women of their ages, 
though not commonly discussed between mistresses and maids. 
Nevertheless, when it did come in the way. Miss Hilary never 
shirked it, but talked it out, frankly and freely, as she would 
to any other person. 

‘‘ The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all 
other girls, I suppose,” reasoned she to herself; “so it is im- 
portant that her notions should be kept clear, and her feelings 
right. It may do her some good, and save her from much 
harm. ” 

And so. it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, un- 
lovely person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved 
kept her from attracting any “ sweetheart of her own class, 
had unconsciously imbibed her mistress’s theory of love. Love, 
pure and simple,' the very deepest and highest, sweetest and 
most solemn thing in life; to be believed in devoutly until it 
< came, and when it did come, to be held to firmly, faithfully, 
with a single-minded, settled constancy, till death — a creed 
quite impossible, many will say, in this ordmary world, and 
most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor servant. Yet 
a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen; and 
if, from queens to maid-servants girls were taught thus to 
think of love, there might be a few more “ broken ” hearts 
perhaps, but there would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far 
fewer corrupted lives of men and degraded lives of women; far 
fewer unholy marriages, and desolate, dreary, homeless homes. 

Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea tilings, stood listening 
to the voices in the parlor, and pondering. 

She had sometimes wondered in her oivn mind that no 
knight ever came to carry off her charming princess — her ad- 
mired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her part, 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


55 


seamed totally indifferent to the youth at Stowbury, who in- 
deed were^ Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy of regard. The 
only suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody 
exceedingly grand and noble — a compound of the best heroes of 
Shakespeare, Scott, Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and 
Harriet Martineau. When this strange gentleman appeared — 
in ordinary coat and hat, or rather Glengary bonnet, neither 
particularly handsome nor particularly tall, yet whose coming 
had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure, and who, 
once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she had 
seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever . looked before — 
when Mr. Robert Lyon apj^eared on the horizon, the faithful 
‘‘ bower-maiden ^ * was a good deal disappointed. 

She had expected somthing better; at all events, something 
different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass! 
but she quickly built it up again, and, with the vivid imagina- 
tion of her age, she mapped out the whole future, ending by a 
vision of Miss Hilary, all in white, sweeping down the terrace 
in a carriage and pair — to fortune and happiness; leaving her- 
self, though with a sore want at her heart, and a great longing 
to follow, to devote the remainder of her natural life to Miss 
Johanna. 

“ Her couldna do without somebody to see to her — and Miss 
Selina do worrit her so,^^ muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement 
of this Alnaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. 
“ So, even if Miss Hilary axes me to come, ITl stop, I reckon. 
Ay, ITl stop wi" Miss Leaf. 

This valorous determination taken, the poor maid-servant^ s 
dream was broken by the opening of the parlor door, and an 
outcry of Ascott^s for his coat and gloves, he having to fetch 
his aunts home at nine o'clock, Mr. Lyon accompanying him. 
And as they all stood together at the front door, Elizabeth 
overheard Mr. Lyon say something about what a beautiful 
night it was. 

“ It would do you no harm. Miss Hilary; will you walk with 
us?" 

If you like." 

Hilary went upstairs for her bonnet and shawl; but when, a 
minute or two after, Ehzabeth followed her with a candle, she 
found her standing in the center of the room, all in the dark, 
her face white, and her hands trembling. ^ ^ 

Thank you— ^thank you!" she said, mechanically, as Eliza- 
beth folded and fastened her shawl for her, and descended im- 
mediately. Elizabeth watched her take, not Ascott's arm, but 
Ml’. Lyon's, and w^lk down the terrace in the starlight* 


i56 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


“ Some^at^s wrong. I^d like to know who’s been a-vexin^ 
of her/’ thought fiercely the young servant. 

No, nobody had been a-vexin’ ” her mistress. There was 
nobody to blame; only there had happened to Hilary one of 
those things which strike like a sword through a young and 
happy heart, taking all the life and youth out of it. 

Eobert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her — and she had 
had to hear it as a piece of simple news, to which she had only 
to say Indeed!” — ^that to-day and to-morrow were his two 
last days at Stowbury — almost his last in England. Within a 
week he was to sail for India. 

There had befallen him what most people would have con- 
sidered a piece of rare good fortune. At the London Uni- 
versity, a fellow-student, whom he had been gratuitously 

coaching ” in Hindostanee, fell ill, and was thrown upon 
his hands,” as he briefly defined services which must have been 
great, since they had resulted in this end. The young man’s 
father, a Liverpool and Bombay merchant, made him an offer 
to go out there to their house, at a rising salary of three hun- 
dred rupees a month for three years; after the third year to 
become a junior partner, remaining at Bombay m that capacity 
for two years more. 

This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as ' 
I have here put it, for brevity seemed a refuge to him : it was 
also to one of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that 
his aunt needed to ask none. She only hstened, and tried to 
^take all in, and understand it— that is, in a consecutive, in- 
telligent, business shape, without feehng it. She dared not let 
herself feel it, not for a second, till they were out, arm-in-arm, 
under the quiet winter stars. Then she heard his voice asking 
her, 

‘‘ So you think I was right?” 

Eight?” she echoed, mechanically. 

‘/I mean, in accepting that sudden chance, and changing 
liiy whole plan of life. I did not do it — believe me — without 
a motive. ” 

Wliat motive? she would once unhesitatingly have asked; 
now she could not. 

Eobert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an 
under-tone that, though Ascott was walking a few yards off, 
Hilary felt was meant for her alone to hear. 

The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to 
that of a man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the 
first. Once upon q time, to be a fellow in a college, or a pro- 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


57 


fessor^ or the like, was my utmost aim; and I would have half 
killed myself to attain it. Now, I think differently/^ 

He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it 
did not come. 

“ I want not to be rich, but to get a decent competence, and 
to get it as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my health with 
incessant study. I have already inji:q’ed it a good deal.^^ 

“ Have you been ill? You never said so.^^ 

‘‘ Oh, no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an active 
life would soon set me right again. No fear !• there’s life in the 
old dog yet. He does not wish to die. But, ” Mr. Lyon pur- 
sued, “ I have had a ‘ sair fecht ’ the last year or two. I 
would not go through it again, nor see any one dear to me go 
through it. It is over, but it has left its scars. Strange! I 
have been poor all my life, yet I never till now felt an actual 
terror of poverty. ” 

Hilary shrunk within herself, less even at the words than at 
something in their tone — something hard, nay, fierce; spine- 
tiling at once despairing and aggressive. 

“It is strange,” she said; “ such a terror is not like you. 
I feel none; I can not even understand it.” 

“No; I knew you could not,” he muttered, and was silent. 

So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it 
be that he, Eobert Lyon, had been seized with the auri sacra 
fames, which he had so often inveighed against and despised? 
— that his long battle with poverty had caused in him such an 
overweening desire for riches that, to obtain them, he would 
sacrifice everything else, exile himself to a far country for 
years, selling his very life and soul for gold? 

Such a thought of him was so terrible — that is, would have 
been were it tenable — that Hilai’y for an instant felt herself 
shiver all over. The next she spoke out — ^in justice to him she 
forced herself to speak out — all her honest soul. 

“I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, 
which young men so delight in, is often a most fatal mistake. 
They give up far more than they gain — country, home, health. 
I think a man has no right to sell his life any more than liis 
soul for so many thousands a year.” 

Eobert Lyon smiled. “No; and I am not selling mine. 
With my temperate habits I have as good a chance of health 
at Bombay as in London — perhaps better. And the years.! 
must be absent I would have been absent almost as much from 
you — I mean they would have been spent in work as engross- 
ing and as hard. They will soon pass, and then I shall come 
home rich — rich. Do you think I am growing mercenary?” 


58 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 

‘‘No.’’ 

“ Tell me what you do think about me.” 

“ I — can not quite understand.” 

“And I can not make you understand. Perhaps I will, 
some day, when I come back again. Till then, you must 
trust me, Hilary.” 

It happens occasionally, in moments of all but intolerable 
pain, that some small thing — a word, a look, a touch of a 
hand, lets in such a gleam of peace that nothing ever extiii- 
guishes the light Of it: it burns on for years and years, some- 
times clear, sometimes obscured, but as ineffaceable from life 
and memory as a star from its place in the heavens. Such, 
both then and through the lonely years to come, were those 
five words, “ You must trust me, Hilary.” 

She did; and in the perfectness of that trust her own sepa- 
rate identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed an- 
nihilated: she did not think of herself at all, only of him, and 
with him, and ;for him. So, for the time being, she lost all 
sense of personal suffering, and tlieir walk that night was as 
cheerful and happy as if they were to walk together for weeks, 
and months, and years in undivided confidence and content, 
instead of its being the last — the very last. 

Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn 
to be only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the 
friendship is the foundation — always firm and ready to fall 
back upon long after the fascination of passion dies. It may 
take a little from the romance of these two if I own that 
Eobert Lyon talked to Hilary not a word about love, and a 
good deal about pure business, telling her all his affairs and 
arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his future 
life as it was .possible to do within the limits of one brief half 
hour. 

Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was 
quite out of ear-shot, he said, with that tender fall of the voice 
that felt, as some poet hath it, 

“ Like a still embrace,” 

“Now tell me as much as you can about yourself. 

At first there seemed nothing to tell, but gradually he drew 
from Hilary a good deal. Johanna’s feeble health, which 
caused her continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the 
gradual diminishing of the school — from what cause they could 
not account — which made it very doubtful whether some 
change would not soon or late be necessary. 

What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


59 - 

little — as far as, in the utterly indefinite position of affairs, was 
possible. Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to 
him about another dread which had lurked in her mind, and 
yet to which she could give no tangible shape — about Ascott. 
He could not remove it, he did not attempt; but he soothed it 
a little, advising her as to the best way of managing the willful 
lad. His strong, clear sense, just judgment, and, above all, a 
certain unspoken sense of union, as if all that concerned her 
and hers he took naturally upon himself as his own, gave 
Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a full con- 
sciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy — nay, she 
had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be 
told, the glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken 
or silent, constitutes the only perfect joy of life — that of two 
made one) — perhaps she had never been so really happy since 
she was born. 

The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance 
that in any and all difficulty she would apply to him. 

‘‘ To me, and to no one else, remember. 'No one but myself 
must help you. And I will, so long as I am alive. Do. you 
believe this?^^ 

She looked up at him by the lamp-light, and said, I do.'' 

“ And you promise?" 

‘^Yes." 

Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should 
never walk together again till — when, and how? 

Returning, of course he walked with Miss Leaf; and through- 
out the next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by them entire- 
ly in the little parlor, they had not a minute of special or pri- 
vate talk together. He did not seem to wish it — indeed, almost 
avoided it. 

Thus slipped away the strange, still day — a Simday never to 
be forgotten. At night, after prayers were over, Mr. Lyon 
rose suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he was obhged 
to start from Stowbury at day-break. 

Shall we not see you again?" asked Johanna. 

“No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good- 
bye!" 

He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with them 
all — Hilary last — and almost before they recognized the fact 
he was gone. 

With him departed, not all Hilary's peace, or faith, or cour- 
age of heart— for to all who love truly, while the best beloved 
• lives, and lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and no grief 
overwhelming— but all the brightness of her youth, all the 


GO 


MISTRESS AND 3IAID. 


sense of joy that young people have in loving and in being 
loved again, in fond meetings and fonder partings, in endless 
^alks and talks, in sweet kisses and clinging arms. Such hap- 
piness was not for her; when she saw it the lot of others, she 
said to herself sometimes with a natural sharp sting of pain, 
but oftenerwith a solemn acquiescence, It is the will of God; 
it is the will of God. 

Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to bring 
some color bac^ to the white face of her darling, of whom she 
asked no questions, and who never complained nor confessed 
anything, many and many a night, when Hilary either lay 
awake by her side, or tossed and moaned in her sleep till the 
elder sister took her in her arms like a baby — ohanna, too, 
said to herself, This is the will of God. "" 

I have told thus much in detail the brief, sad story of 
Hilary^ s youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth 
Hand" could live in the house with these two women mthout 
being strongly influenced by them, as every person — especially 
every woman — influences for good or for evil every other per- 
son connected with her or dependent upon her. 

Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen ^)ercep- 
tion. Besides, to most people, whether or not tlieir sympathy 
be universal, so far as the individual is concerned, any deep 
aflection generally lends eyes, tact, and delicacy. 

Thus when, on the Monday morning at breakfast. Miss 
Selina observed, ‘‘ what a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for 
liis journey; what a lucky fellow he was; how he would be sure 
to make a fortune, and if so, she wondered whether they 
should ever see or hear anything of him again — Elizabeth, 
from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary^ s face, and from 
the quiet way in wliich Miss Leaf merely answered, Time 
will show, and began talking to Selina about some other 
subject — Elizabeth resolved never in any way to make the 
smallest allusion to Mr. Kobert Lyon. Something had hap- 
pened, she did not know what, and it was not her business to 
find out; the family affairs, so far as she was trusted with 
them, were warmly her own, but into the family secrets had no 
right to pry. 

Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to wonder ” about 
him, or even to name him — ^his presence or absence did not 
touch her personally, and she was always the center of her 
own small world of interest — the little maid-servant kept in 
her mind, and pondered over at odd times every possible solu- 
tion of the mystery of this gentleman^s sudden visit; of the 
long, wet Sunday when he sat all day talking with her mis- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


61 ' 

tresses in tlie parlor; of the evening prayer, when Miss Leaf 
had twice to stop, her voice faltered so; and of the night when, 
long after all the others had gone to bed, Elizabeth, coming 
suddenly into the parlor, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone 
over the embers of the fire, with the saddest, saddest look! so 
that the girl had softly shut the door again without ever speak- 
ing to “ missis/-’ ' 

Elizabeth did more, which, strange as it may appear, a serv- 
ant who is supposed to know nothing of anything that has 
happened can often do better than a member of the family 
who knows ever3rthing, and this knowledge is sometimes the 
most irritating consciousness a sufferer has. She followed her 
young mistress with a steady watchfulness, so quiet and sil^ht 
that Hilary never found it out — saved her every little house- 
hold care, gave her every little household treat. Not much to 
do, and less to be chronicled; but the way in which she did it 
was all. 

During the^ long, dull, winter days, to come in and find the 
parlor fire always bright, the hearth clean swept, and the room 
tidy; never to enter the kitchen without the servant's face 
clearing up into a smile; when her restless irritability made her 
forget things and grow quite vexed in the search after them, 
to see that somehow her shoes were never misplaced, and her 
gloves always came to hand in some mysterious manner — these 
trifles, in her first heavy days of darkness, soothed Hilary moi’e 
than words could tell. 

And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and 
school-room as usual, with that poor white face of hers; nay, 
gi’adually bringing to the family fireside, as usual, her harm- 
less little joke, and her merry laugh at it and herself — ^vdio 
shall say what lessons may not have been taught by this to the 
humble servant, dropping deep-sown into her heart, to germi- 
nate and fructify, as her future lifers needs required? 

It might have been so — God knows! He alone can know, , 
who, through what (to us) seem the infinite littleness of our 
mortal existence, is educating us into the infinite greatness of 
his and our immortality. 


CHAPTER VIL 

Autumn soon lapsed into winter; Christmas came and 
went, . bringing, not Ascott, as they hoped and he had 
promised, but a very serious evil in the shape of jpndry bills 
of his, which, he confessed in a most piteous letter to his aunt 
Hilary, were absolutely unpayable out of his godfather’s allow- 


6 ^ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ance. They were not large — or would not have seemed so to 
rich people — and they were for no more blamable luxuries than 
horse-hire, and a dinner or two to friends out in the country; 
but they looked serious to a household which rarely was more 
than ‘five pounds beforehand with the world. 

He had begged aunt Hilary to keep his secret, but that was 
evidently impossible; S(^, on the day the schoOl-accounts^ were 
being written out and sent in, and their amount anxiously 
reckoned, she laid before her sisters the* lad^s letter, full of 
penitence and promises: 

I wiU be careful— I will indeed— if you will help me this 
once, dear Aunt Hilary; and don't think too ill of me. I have 
done nothing wicked. And you don't know London— you 
don't know, with a lot of young fellows about one, how very 
hard, it is to say no." 

At that unlucky postscript the Misses Leaf sorrowfully ex- 
changed looks. Little the lad thought about it — but these few 
words were the very sharpest pang Ascott had ever given to his 
aunts. 

“What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh." 
“ Like father, like son." “ The sins of the parents shall be 
visited on the children." So runs many a proverb; so con- 
firms the unerring decree of a just God, who would not be a 
just God did he allow himself to break his own righteous laws 
for the government of the universe; did he falsify the require- 
ments of his own holy and pure being by permitting any other 
wages for sin than death. And though, through his mercy, 
simforsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being has 
it in his power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary 
moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom 
and alleviking the curse, still the original law remains in 
force, and ought to remain, an example and a warning. As 
true as that every individual sin which a man commits breeds 
multitudes more, is it that every individual sinner may trans- 
mit his own peculiar type of weakness or wickedness to a whole 
race, disappearing in one generation, reappearing in another, 
exactly the same as physical peculiarities do, requiring the ut- 
most caution of feducation to counteract the terrible tendencies 
of nature — the “ something in the blood which is so difficult 
to eradicate; which may even make the third and fourth gen- 
erations execrate the memory of him or her who was its origin. 

The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the elder, and Henry Leaf 
the younger, had been— the women of the family well knew-^ 
that they were men “ who couldn't say Ho." So keenly were 
the three sisters alive to this fault — it could hardly be called a 


misteeSs akd maid. 


crime, and yet, in its consequences, it was so — so sickening the 
terror of it which their own wretched experience had implanted 
in their minds, that during Ascott^s childhood and youth his 
very fractiousness and roughness, his little selfishness, and his 
persistence in his own will against theirs, had been hailed by 
his aunts as a good omen that he would grow up ‘‘so unlike 
his poor father. 

If the two unhappy Henry Leafs — ^father and son — ^could 
have come out of their graves that night and beheld these three 
women, daughters and sisters, sitting with Ascott^s letter on 
the table, planning how the household’s small expenses could 
be contracted, its srill smaller luxuries relinquished, in order that 
the boy might honorably pay for pleasures he might so easily 
have done without! lithey could have seen the weight of ap- 
prehension which then sunk like a stone on these long-tried 
hearts, never to be afterward quite removed; lightened some- 
times, but always — however Ascott might promise and amend 
— always there! On such a discovery, surely, these two “ poor 
ghosts ” would have fled away moaning, wishing they had died 
childless, or that during their mortal lives any amount of self- 
restraint and self-compulsion had purged from their natures 
the accursed thing — the sin which had worked itself out in 
sorrow upon every one belonging to them years after their own 
heads were laid in the quiet dust. 

“We must do it,” was the conclusion the Misses Leaf 
unanimously came to — even Selina, who, with all her faults, 
had a fair share of good feeling and of that close clinging to 
kindred which is found in fallen households, or households 
whom the sacred bond of common poverty has drawn together 
in a way that large, well-to-do home circles can never quite 
understand. “We must not let the boy remain in debt; it 
would be such a disgrace to the family. ” 

“ It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, 
which is the real disgrace to Ascott and the family.” 

“ Hush, Hilary!” said Johanna, pointing to the. opening 
door; but it was too late. 

Elizabeth, coming suddenly in — or else the ladies had been 
so engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed 
her — haJ evidently heard every word of the last sentence. Her 
conscious face showed it — more especially the bright scarlet 
which covered both her cheeks when Miss Leaf said “ Hush!” 
She stood, apparently irresolute as to whether she should run 
away again; and then her native honesty got the upper hand, 
and she advanced into the room. 

“If you please, missis, I didn’t mean to — but I’ve heard — ” 


64 


MISTRESS AUD MAID. 


What have you heard— that is^ how much? 

Just what Miss Hilary said. Don^t he af eared. I sha n t 
tell. I never chatter about the family. Mother told me not. " 

“You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to your good mother. 

How go away.'" ^ ^ i x 

“ And another time," said Miss Selina, knock at the 

door." 

This was Elizabeth's first initiation into what many a servant 
has to share — ^the secret burden of the family. After that day, 
though they did not actually confide in her, her mistresses used^ . 
no effort to conceal that they had cares; that the domestic 
economies must, this winter, be especially studied; there must 
be no extra fires, no candles left burning to waste; and, once 
a week or so, a few butterless breakfa^s or meatless v dinners 
must be partaken of cheerfully in both parlor and kitchen. 
The Misses Leaf never stinted their servant in anything in 
which they did not stint themselves. 

Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina's prophecies, the girl's 
respectful conduct did not abate; on the contrary, it seemed 
to increase. The nearer she was lifted to her mistresses' level, 
the more her mind grew, so that she could better understand 
her mistresses' cares, and the deeper became her consciousness 
of the only thing which gives one human being any real 
authority over another — personal character. 

Therefore, though the family means were narroAved, and the 
family luxuries few, Elizabeth cheerfully put up with all; she 
even felt a sort of pride in wasting nothing and in making the 
. best of everything, as the others did. Perhaps, it may be said, 
she was an exceptional servant; and yet I would not do her 
class the wrong to believe so — I would rather believe that there 
are many such among it; many good, honest, faithful girls, 
Avho only need good mistresses unto whom to be honest and 
faithful, and they would be no less so than EHzabeth Hand. 

The months went by — heavy and anxious months; for the 
school gradually dwindled away, and Ascott's letter — now 
almost the only connection his aunts had with the outer Avorld, 
for poverty necessarily diminished even their small Stowbury 
society — ^became more and more unsatisfactory; and the want 
of information in them was not supplied by those other letters 
which had once kept Johanna's heart easy concerning the boy. 

Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sailing, 
for he had seiitdt home by the pilot from the English Chan- 
nel; then there Avas, of course, silence. October, November, 
December, January, February, March — hoAV often did Hilary 
count the months, and Avonder hoAv soon a letter could come 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


65 


— ^whether a letter ever would come again. And sometimes — 
the sharp present stinging her with its small daily pains, the 
future looKing dark before her and them all — she felt so for- 
lorn, so forsaken, that hut for it certain tiny welhsj)rmg of 
hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and-twenty, 
she could have sat dowm and sighed, “ My good days are 
done.^' 

Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor 
people ; that is, they more easily get into that morbid state 
which is glorified by the term a broken heart. Poor people 
can not afford it. Their constant labor “physics pain.^^. 
Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. Holy poverty! 
black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too, that is, when 
it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness, wastefulness, and 
bickerings; above all, free from the terror of debt. 

‘ ‘ AVeTl starve — weTl go into the work-house rather than wefil 
go into debt!^'’ cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when 
she was in sore want of a shawl, and Selina urged her to get it, 
and wait till she could pay for it. “ Yes; the work-house! It 
would be less shame to be honorably indebted to the laws of 
the land than to be meanly indebted, under false pretenses, to. . 
any individual in it. 

And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got 
next month enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonneyoo — 
nay, by great ingenuity, another bonnet for Johanna — Hilary 
could have danced and sung — sung, in the gladness and relief 
of her heart, the glorious euthanasia of poverty. 

But these things happened only occasionally; the daily life 
was hard, still— ay, very hard, even though at last came the 
letter from “ foreign parts and follov/ing it, at regular inter- 
vals, other letters. They were full of facts rather than feel- 
ings — simple, straightforward; worth little as literary compo- 
sitions; school-master and learned man as- he was, there Avas 
nothing hterary or poetical about Mr. Lyon; but what he 
wrote was like what he spoke, the accurate reflection of his 
own clear, original mind, and honest, tender heart. 

His letters gave none the less comfort because, nominally, 
they Avere addressed to Johanna. This might have been from 
some crotchet of overreserve, or delicacy, or honor — the same 
which made him part from her for 5^ears with no other Avord 
than “You must trust me, Hilary;"^ but, whatever it was, she 
respected it, and she did trust him. And Avhether Johanna 
answered his letters or not, month by month they unfailmgly 
came, keeping her completely informed of all his proceedings, 
and letting out, as epistles written from over the seas often do. 




MISTRESS AND MAID. 


66 

much more of himself and his character than he was probably 
aware that he betrayed. . 

And Hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been the 
scarcely remembered father, the too well remembered brother, 
and the anxiously watched nephew, thanked God that there 
seemed to be one man in the world whom a woman could lean 
her heart upon and not feel the support break like a reed be- 
neath her — one man whom she could entirely' believe in, and 
safely and sacredly trust. 


CHAPTER YIII. 

Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been away more than 
three years. But in the monotonous life of the three sisters at 
Stowbury nothmg was changed — except, perhaps, Elizabeth, 
who had grown quite a woman; might, have passed almost for 
thirty, so solidly old-fashioned were her figure and her man- 
ners. 

Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the hospitals and his ex- 
aminations, and was now fitted to commence practice for himself. 
His godfather had still continued his allowance, though once 
or twice, when he came down to Stowbury, he had asked his 
auntoto help him in some small debts — the last time in one a 
little more serious; when, after some sad and sore consulta- 
tion, it had been resolved to tell him he must contrive to live 
within liis own allowance. For they were poorer than they 
used to be; many more schools had arisen in the town, and 
theirs had dwindled away. It was becoming a soiu’ce of serious 
anxiety whether they could possibly make ends meet; and 
when, the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a five-pound note 
— an actual five-pound note, together with a fond, grateful 
letter that was worth it all, the aunts were deeply thankfid, 
and very happy. 

But still the school declined. One night they were speculat- 
ing upon the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half- 
jocular, half -earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is 
never a prophet in his own country. 

“ The Stowbury people will never believe how clever 1 am. 
Only it is a useless sort of cleverness, I fear. Greek, Latin, 
and mathematics are no good to infants under seven, such as 
Stowbury persists in sending to uS. ^ ^ 

They think I am only fit to teach little children — and per- 
haps it is true>^^ said Miss Leaf. 

‘ ‘ I wish you had not to teach at all. I Avislf I was a daily 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


67 


governess — I might be, and earn enough to keep the whole 
family; only, not here. 

I wonder,' said Johanna, thoughfully, if we shall have 
to make a change 

“ A change It almost pained the elder sister to see how 
the younger brightened up at the word. ‘‘ Where to — Lon- 
don? Oh, I have so longed to go and live in London! But I 
thought you would not like it, Johanna. 

That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble health had made 
prematurely old, would willingly have ended her days in the 
familiar town; but Hilary was young and strong. Johanna 
called to mind the days when she too had felt that rest was only 
another name . for dullness, and when the most difficult thing 
possible to her was what seemed now so easy — ^to sit down and 
endure. 

Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her life all before her. 
It might be a happy life, safe in a good man's tender keeping; 
those unfailing letters from India seemed to prophesy that it 
would. But no one could say. Miss Leaf's own experience 
had not led her to place much faith in either men or happi- 
ness. 

Still, whatever Hilary's future might be, it would likely be 
a very different one from that quiet, colorless life of hers. And 
as she looked at her young sister, with the twilight glow on 
her face — they were takmg an evening stroll up and down the 
terrace — Johanna hoped and prayed it might be so. Her own. 
lot seemed easy enough for herself; but for Hilary — she would 
like to see Hilary something better than a poor school-mistress 
at Stowbury. 

Ho more was said at that time, but Johanna had the deep, 
still, Mary-like nature which “ kept " things, and ‘‘ pondered 
them in her heart;" so that when the subject came up again 
she was able to meet it with that sweet calmness which was her 
especial characteristic — the unruffled peace of a soul which no 
worldly storms could disturb overmuch, for it had long since 
cast anchor in the world unseen. 

The chance which revived the question of the Great Metro- 
politan Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from Mr. As- 
cott, as follows: 

‘‘Miss Leaf; 

“ Madame, — I shall be obliged by your informing me if it is 
your wish, as it seems to be your nephew's, that, instead of re- 
turning to Stowbury, he should settle in London as a surgeon 
and general practitioner? 


68 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


His education complete, I consider that I have done my 
duty by him; but I may assist him occasionally still, unless he 
turns out— as his father did before him— a young man who 
prefers’ being helped to helping himself, in which case I shall 
have notliing more to do with him. 

“ I remain, madame, your obedient servant, 

‘‘ Peter Ascott. 

The sisters read this letter, passing it round the table, none 
of them apparently liking to be the first to comment upon it. 
At length Hilary said, “ I think that reference to poor Henry 
is perfectly brutal.'’^ 

And yet he was very kind to Henry. And if it had not 
been for his common sense in sending poor little Ascott and 
the nurse down to Stowbury, the baby might have died. But 
you don't remember anything of that time, my dear," said 
Johanna, sighing. 

“ He has been kind enough, though he has done it in such a 
patronizing way," observed Sehna. ‘‘ I suppose that's the 
real reason of his doing it. He thinks it fine to patronize us, 
and show kindness to our family; he, the stout, bullet-headed 
grocer's bo}^, who used to sit and stare at us all church-time. " 

“At you, you mean. Wasn't he called your beau?" said 
Hilary, mischievously, upon which Selina drew herself up in 
great indignation. 

And then they fell to talking of that anxious question— As- 
cott' s future. A little they reproached themselves that they 
had left the lad so long in London — so long out of the influ- 
ence that might have counteracted the evil, sharply hinted in 
his godfather's letter. But once away, to lure him back to 
their poor home was impossible. 

“ Suppose we were to go to him," suggested Hilary. 

The poor and friendless possess one great advantage— they 
have nobody to ask advice of; nobody to whom it matters much 
what they do or where they go. The family mind has but to 
make itself up, and act accordingly. Thus, within an hour or 
two of the receipt of Mr. Ascott's letter, Hilary went into the 
kitchen and told Elizabeth that as soon as her work was done 
Miss Leaf wished to have a little talk with her. 

“ Eh! what's wrong? Has Miss Selina been a-grumbling at 
me?" 

Elizabeth was in one of her old humors, which, though of 
course they never ought to have, servants do have as well as 
their superiors. Hilary perceived this by the way she threw 
the coals on, and tossed the chairs about. But to-day her 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


69 


heart was far more full of serious cares than Elizabeth's ill 
temper. She replied, composedly, 

‘‘ I have not heard that either of my sisters is displeased with 
you. What they want to talk to you about is for your own 
good. W^e are thinking of making a great change. We in- 
tend leaving Stowbury and going to live in London. 

‘‘ Going to live in London 

Now, quick as her tact and observation were — her heart 
taught her these things — Elizabeth's head was a thorough 
Saxon one, slow to receive impressions. It was a family saying 
that nothing was so hard as to put a new idea into Elizabeth 
except to get it out again. 

For this reason Hilary preferred paving the way quietly be- 
fore startling her with the sudden intelligence of their contem- 
plated change. 

Well, what do you say to the plan?^^ asked she, good- 
humoredly. 

‘‘ I dunnot like it at all,^^ was the brief, gruff answer of 
Elizabeth Hand. 

Now it was one of Miss Hilary^s doctrines that no human 
being is good for much unless he or she has what is called a 
will of oner's own. Perhaps this, like many another creed, 
was with her the result of circumstances. But she held it 
firmly, and with that exaggerated one-sidedness of feeling which 
any bitter family or personal experience is sure to leave behind 
— a strong will was her first attraction to everybody. It had 
been so in the case of Robert Lyon, and not less in Elizabeth^’s. 

But this quality has its inconveniences. When the maid be- 
gan sweeping up her hearth with a noisy, angry gesture, the. 
mistress did the wisest and most dignified thing a mistress could 
do under the circumstances, and which she knew was the 
sharpest rebuke she could administer to the sensitive Elizabeth 
— she immediately quitted the kitchen. 

For an hour after the parlor-bell did not rmg; and though it 
was washing-day, no Miss Hilary appeared to help in folding 
up the clothes. Elizabeth, subdued and wretched, waited till 
she could wait no longer, then knocked at the door, and asked 
humbly if she could bring in supper. 

The extreme kindness of the answer — to the' effect that she 
must come in, as they wanted to speak to her, crushed the 
lingering fragments of ill humor out of the girl. 

“ Miss Hilary has told you our future plans, Elizabeth; now 
we wish to have a little talk with you about yours. 

“ Eh?^^ 

‘‘We conclude you will not wish to go with us to London, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


70 

and it would be hardly advisable you should. You can get 
higher wages now than any we can afford to give you; indeed, 
we have more than once thought of telling you so, and offering 
you your choice of trying for a better place. 

‘‘You're very kind," ^ was the answer, stolid rather than 

grateful. ' 

“No; I think we are merely honest. We should never 
think of keeping a girl upon lower wages than she was worth. 
Hitherto, however, the arrangement has been quite fair; you 
know, Elizabeth, you have given us a deal of trouble in the 
teaching of you. " And Miss Leaf smiled, half sadly, as if this, 
the first of the coming changes, hurt her more than she liked 
to express. “ Come, my girl," she added, “ you needn't look 
so serious. We are not in the least vexed with you; we shall 
be very sorry to lose you, and we will give you the best of 
characters when you leave. " 

“ I dunnot — mean — to leave." 

Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked fash- 
ion, and disappeared suddenly from the parlor. 

“ Who would have thought it!" exclaimed Selina; “ I de- 
clare the girl was crying. " 

No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes after/ 
Miss Hilary entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried, 
shamefaced way to liide her tears by being very busy over some- 
thing. Her mistress took no notice, but began, as usual on 
washing-days, to assist in various domestic matters, in the midst 
of which she said, quietly, 

“ And so, Elizabeth, you would really like to go to London?" 
• “ No, I shouldn't like it at all — never said I should. But if 
you go, I shall go too — though missis is so ready to get shut o' 
me. " 

“ It was for your own good, you know. " 

“You always said it was for a girl's good to stop in one 
place; and if you think I am going to another — I aren^t, that's 
all." 

Bude as the form of the speech was — almost the first rude 
speech, that Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, and 
which, under other circumstances, she would have felt bound 
severely to reprove — the mistress passed it over. That which 
lay beneath it, the sharpness of wounded love, touched her 
heart. She felt that, for all the girl's rough manner, it would 
have been hard to go into her London kitchen and meet a 
strange London face, instead of that fond, homely one of 
Elizabeth Hand's. 

Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London life 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


71 

might have many difficulties; that, for thp present at least, 
her wages could not be raised, and the family might at first be 
in even more straitened circumstances than they were at 
Stowbury., 

‘‘ Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pupils. 
And by^ and by our nephew will get into practice.-’^ 

“ Is it on account of him you^re going. Miss Hilarv?^^ 
Chiefly. 

Elizabeth gave a grunt, wliich said as plainly as words could 
say, I thought so;^^ and relapsed into what she, no doubt, 
believed to be virtuous indignation, but which, as it was testi- 
fied against the wrong parties, was open to the less favorable 
interpretation of ill humor — a small injustice not uncommon 
with us all. 

I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect 
character. She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong 
fidelities; her faults within and without, which had to be 
struggled with, as all of us have to struggle to the very end of 
our days. Oftentimes not till the battle is nigh over — some- 
times not till it is quite over — does God give us the victory? 

Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed that 
Elizabeth should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand 
seemed to be pleased thereat, her only doubt being lest her 
daughter should meet and be led astray by that bad woman 
Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe’s mother, who was reported to have 
gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that this meeting 
was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in a hay- 
rick; and, besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be 
easily “ led astray by anybody. 

Ho, no; her^s a good wench, though I says it,^^ replied the 
mother, who was too hard worked to have much sentiment to 
spare. I wish the little uns may take pattern by our Eliza- 
beth. Youfll send her home, may be, in two or three years^ 
time, to let us have a look at her?^' 

Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back through 
the familiar old town — so soon to be familiar no more — think- 
ing anxiously, in spite of herself, upon those two or three 
years, and what they might bring. 

It happened to be a notable day — that sunshuiy 28th of 
June — ^when the little round-cheeked damsel, who is a grand- 
mother now, had the crown of three kingdoms first set upon 
her youthful head, and Stowbury, like every other town in the 
land, was a perfect bower of green arches, garlands, banners; 
white-covered tables were spread in the open air down almost 
every street, where poor men dined, or poor women drank tea; 


72 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and everybody was out and abroad, looking at or sharing' in 
the holiday-making, wild with merriment, and brimming over 
with passionate loyalty to the Maiden Queen. 

That day is now twenty-four years ago; but all those who 
remember it must own there never has been a day like it, when 
all over the country, every man^s heart throbbed with chival- 
rous devotion, every woman ^s with womanly tender nessy toward 
this one royal girl, who — God bless her! — ^has lived to retain 
and deserve it all. 

Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd the little, 
timid widow lady who had taken off the Misses Leaf^s hands 
their house and furniture, and whom they had made very hap- 
py — as the poor often can make those still poorer than them- 
selves — by refusing to accept anything for the “ good-will of 
the school. Then she was fetched by Elizabeth, who had been 
given a whole afternoon^ s holiday; and mistress and maid went 
together home, watching the last of the festivities, the chatter- 
ing groups that still lingered in the twilight streets, and listen- 
ing to the merry notes of the “ Triumph which came down 
through the lighted windows of the Town Hall, wliere the open- 
aii’ tea-drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by 
civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity. 

“ I wonder,^ ^ said Hilary — while, despite some natural re- 
gret, her spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the narrowness 
of the place where she was born into the great wide world; the 
world where so many grand things were thought, and written, 
and done; the world Eobert Lyon had so long fought with, 
and was fighting bravely still — “ I wonder, Elizabeth, what sort 
of place London is, and what our life will be in it?^^ 

Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seemed 
to catch the refiected glow of her mistresses, and then it settled 
down into that look of mingled resistance and resolution which 
was habitual to her. For the life that was to be, which neither 
knew — oh, if they had known ! — she also was prepared. 


OHAPTEE IX. 

The day of the grand hegira came. 

“ I remember, e" said Miss Leaf, as they rumbled for the last 
time through the empty morning streets of poor old Stow- 
bury — “I remember my grandmother telling me that when 
my grandfather was courting her, and she out 'of coquetry re- 
fused him, he set off on horseback to London, and she was so 
wretched to think of all the dangers he ran on the journey, and 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 73 

ill London itself, that she never rested till she got him back, 
and then immediately married him. 

‘‘No such catastrophe is likely to happen to any of us, ex- 
cept, perhaps, to Elizabeth, said Miss Hilary, trying to get 
up a little feeble mirth, anything to pass away the time and 
lessen the pain of parting, which was almost too much for 
Johanna. “ What do you say? Do you mean to get married 
in London, Elizabeth?'^ 

But Elizabeth could make ho answer, even to kind Miss 
Hilary. They had not imagined she felt the leaving her native 
place so much. She had watched intently the last glimpse of 
Stowbury church tower, and now sat with reddened eyes, star- 
ing blankly out of the carriage window, 

“ Sileiit as a stone.” 

Once or twice a large slow tear gathered on each of her eyes, 
but it was shaken oif angrily from the high cheek-bones, and 
never settled into absolute crying. They thought it best to 
take no noticfe of her. Only, when reaching the new small 
station, where the “ resonant steam-eagles were, for the first 
time, beheld by the innocent Stowbury ladies, there arose a dis- 
cussion as to the manner of travehng. Miss Leaf said decided- 
ly, “ Second-class; and then we can keep .Elizabeth with us.^^ 
Upon which Elizabeth's mouth melted into something between 
a quiver and a smile. 

Soon it was all over, and the little household w£ts compressed 
into the humble second-class carriage, cheerless- and cushion- 
less, whirling through indefinite England in a way that con- 
founded all their geography and topography. Gradually, as the 
day darkened into heavy, chilly July rain, the scarcely kept-up 
spirits of the four passengers began to sink. Johanna grew 
very white and worn; Selina became, to use Ascott's phrase, 
“as cross as two sticks;" and even Hilary, turning her eyes 
fropi the gray, sodden-looking landscape without, could find 
no spot of comfort to rest on within the carriage except that 
round rosy face of Elizabeth Hand's. 

Whether it was from the spirit of contradiction existing in 
most such natures, which, especially in youth, are more strong 
than sweet, or from a better feeling, the fact was noticeable, 
that when every one else's spirits went down Elizabeth's went 
up. Nothing could bring her out of a “ grumpy " fit so satis- 
f^torily as her mistresses falling into one. When Miss Selina 
now began to fidget hither and thither, each tone of her fretful 
voice seeming to go through her eldest sister's every nerve, till 
even Hilary said; impatiently; “Oh; Selina; . can't you be 


74 


MISTRESS AND. MAID. 


quiet?^^ then Elizabeth rose from her depth of gloomy discon- 
tent up to the surface immediately. 

She was only a servant; but Mature bestows that strange 
vague thing that we term force of character independently 
of position. Hilary often remembered afterward how much 
more comfortable the end of the journey v'us than she had ex- 
pected — ^how Johanna lay at ease, with her feet on Elizabethans 
lap, wrapped in Elizabeth's best woolen shawl; and how, when 
Selina ^s whole attention was turned to an ingenious contrivance 
with a towel, and fork, and Elizabeth's basket, for stopping 
the rain out of the carriage-roof — she became far less dis- 
agreeable, and even a little proud of her own cleverness. And 
so there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, and she could 
sit quiet, with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she 
did not see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown 
place and unknown life into which they were sweeping, as we 
all sweep, ignorantly, unresistingly, almost unconsciously, 
into new destinies. Hilary, for the first time, began to think 
of theirs. Anxious as she had been to go to London, and wise 
as the proceeding appeared, now that the die was cast and the 
cable cut, the old, simple, peaceful life of Stowbury grew 
strangely dear. 

“ I wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to 
happen to us before we do go back," she thought and turned, 
with a half -defined fear, toward her eldest sister, who looked 
so old and fragile beside that sturdy, healthy servant-girl. 

Elizabeth!" Elizabeth, rubbing Miss Leaf's feet, started at 
the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary's tone. There; I'll 
do that for my sister. Go and look out of the window at Lon- 
don." 

For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the rainy 
horizon was indeed London. Soon through the thickening 
nebula of houses they converged to what was then the nucleus 
of all railway traveling, the Euston terminus, and were hustled 
on to the platform, and jostled helplessly to and fro — these 
poor country ladies! Anxiously they scanned the crowd of 
strange faces for the one only face they knew in the great 
metropolis — which did not appear. ^ 

It is very strange — ^very wrong of Ascott. Hilary, you 
surely told him the hour correctly. For once, at least, he 
might have been in time. " 

So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, who, by some 
miraculous effort of intuitive genius, had succeeded in collect- 
ing the luggage, was now engaged in defending it from all 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 75 

comers, especially porters, and making of it a comfortable seat 
for Miss Leaf. 

Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give him just five 
minutes more, Hilary. 

And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, calm, long-suffering 
face turned upward to that younger one, which was, as youth 
is apt to be, hot and worried, and angry. And so they waited 
till the terminus was almost deserted, and the last cab had 
driven off, when, suddenly, dashing up the station-yard out of 
another, came Ascott. 

He was so sorry, so very sorry, downright grieved, at having 
kept his aunts waiting. But his watch was wrong — some fel- 
lows at dinner detained him — the train was before its time, 
surely. In fact, his aunts never quite made out what the ex- 
cuse was; but they looked into his bright, handsome face, and 
their wrath melted like clouds before the sun. He was so 
gentlemanly, so well dressed — much better di’essed than even 
at Stowbury, and he seemed so unfeignedly glad to see them. 
He handed them all into the cab — even Ehzabeth, though 
whispering meanwhile to his aunt Hilary, What on earth 
did you bring her for?^'’— and then was just going to leap on 
to the box himself, when he stopped to ask, “ Where he 
should tell cabby to drive to?^’’ 

“Where to?^^ repeated his aunts, in undisguised astonish- 
ment. 

They had never thought of anything but of being taken home 
at once by their boy. 

“ You see,^^ Ascott said, in ahttle confusion, “ you wouldnT 
be comfortable with me. A young fellow^s lodgings are not 
like a house of one^s own, and, besides — 

“ Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of liis old aunts, 
he can easily find reasons.'’^ 

“Hush, Selina!^’ interposed Miss Leaf. “My dear boy, 
your old aunts would never let you inconvenience yourself for 
them. Take us to an inn for the night, and to-morrow we 
will find lodgings for ourselves. 

Ascott looked greatly relieved. 

“ And you are not vexed with me. Aunt Johanna?^^ said he, 
with something of hiS old childish tone of compunction, as he 
saw — he could not help seeing — the utter weariness which 
Johanna tried so hard to hide. 

“ No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known this 
a little sooner, that we might have made arrangements. Now 
where shall we go?^^ 

Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only 


76 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


knew them- by name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one 
which her father used to go to on his frequent journeys to Lon- 
don, and whence, indeed, he had been brought home to die. 
And though all the recollections about it were sad enough, still 
it felt less strange than the rest in this dreariness ot London. 
So she proposed going to the Old Bell, Holborn. 

“ A capital place exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. ‘‘ And I^’ll 
take and settle you there; and we ^11 order supper, and make a 
jolly night of it. All right. Drive on, cabby 

He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievously, 
flourishing his lighted cigar, and shaking his long hair — ^his 
aunt Selina’s two great abominations — right in her indignant 
face, but withal looking so merry and good-tempered that she 
shortly softened into a smile. 

How handsome the boy is growing!” 

‘‘Yes,” said Johanna, with a sigh; “and, did you notice? 
how exceedingly like his — ” 

The sentence was left unfinished. Alas! if every young man 
who believes his faults and follies injure himself alone could 
feel what it must be, years afterward, to have his nearest kin- 
dred shrink from saying, as the saddest, most ominous thing 
they could say of his son, that the lad is growing “ so like his 
father!” 

It might have been — they assured each other that it was — 
only the incessant roll, roll of the street sounds below their 
windows which kept the Misses Leaf awake half the night of 
this their first night in London. And when they sat down to 
breakfast — ^having waited an hour vainly for their nephew — it 
might have been only the gloom of the little parlor which cast 
a slight shadow over them all. Still the shadow was there. 

It deepened, despite the sunshiny morning into which the 
last night’s rain had brightened until Holborn Bars looked 
ch^rful, and Holborn pavemeift actually clean, so that, as 
Elizabeth said, “ you might eat your dinner off it,” which was 
the one only thing she condescended to approve in London. 
She had sat all evening mute in her corner, for Miss Leaf 
would not send her away into the terra incognita of a London 
hotel. Ascott, at first considerably annoyed at the presence of 
what he called a “ skeleton at the feast,” had afterward got 
over it, and run on with a mixture of childish glee and mannish 
pomposity about his plans and intentions : how he meant to 
take a house, he thought, in one of the squares, or a street 
leading out of them; how he would put up the biggest brass 
plates, with “ Mr. Leaf, surgeon,” and soon get an extensive 
practice, and have all his aunts to live with him. And his 


MISTRESS AKt) MAID. 


77 


aunts had smiled and listened, forgetting all about the silent 
figure in the corner, who, perhaps, had gone to sleep, or had 
also listened. 

Elizabeth, come and look out at London/^ 

So she and Miss Hilar}^ whiled away another heavy three- 
quarters of an hour in watching and commenting on the in- 
cessantly shifting crowd which swept past Holborn Bars. Miss 
Selina sometimes looked out too, hut more often sat fidgeting, 
and wondering whyAscott did not come; while Miss. Leaf , who 
never fidgeted, became gradually more and more silent. Her 
eyes were fixed on the door with an expression which, if Hilary 
could have remembered so far back, would have been to her 
something not painfully new, but still, more painfully old — a 
look branded into her face by many an hour^s anxious listening 
for the footsteps that never came, or only came to bring dis- 
tress. It was the ineffaceable token, of that long,, long struggle 
between affection and conscience, pity and scarcely repressible 
contempt, which for more than one generation had been the 
appointed burden of tliis family — af least the women of it, till 
sometimes it seemed to hang over them almost like a fate. 

About noon Miss Leaf proposed calling for the hotel bill. Its 
length so alarmed the country ladies that Hilary suggested not 
staying to dine, but going immediately in search of lodgings. 

‘^What, without a gentleman! Impossible! I always im- 
derstood ladies could go nowhere in London without a gentle- 
man!^^ 

“We shall come very ill off, then, Selina. But, anyhow, I 
mean to try. You know the region where, we have heard, 
lodgings are cheapest and best — that is, best for us. It can 
not be far from here. Suppose I start at once?^^ 

“ What, alone cried Johanna, anxiously. 

“ Ho, dear. I"ll take the map with me, and Elizabeth. 
She is not afraid.'’^ 

Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air of dogged devoted- 
ness with which she would have prepared to follow Miss Hilary 
to the North Pole if necessary. So, after a few minutes of 
arguing with Selina, who’ did not press her point overmuch, 
since she herself had not to commit the impropriety of the ex- 
pedition; after a few minutes more of hopeless lingering about, 
till even Miss Leaf said they had better wait no longer, mis- 
tress and maid, took a farewell nearly as pathetic as if they had 
been in reality Arctic voyagers, and plunged right into the 
dusty glare and hmTying crowd of the “ sunny side of Hol- 
born in J uly. 

A strange sensation, and yet there was sometliing exhilarat- 


78 


MISTEES8 AND MAID. 


ing in it. . The intense solitude that there is in a London crowd 
these country girls — for Miss Hilary herself was no more than 
a girl — could not as yet 'realize. They only felt the life of it; 
stirring, active, incessantly moving life, even though it was of 
a kind that they knew as little oi^it as the crowd did of them, 
hlothing struck Hilary more than the self-absorbed look of 
passers-by; each so busy on his own affairs that, in spite of 
Sehna^s alarm, for all notice taken of them, they might as well 
be walking among the cows and horses in Stowbury field. 

Poor old Stowbury! They felt how far away they were from 
it when a ragged, dirty, vicious-looking girl offered them a 
moss rosebud for “ one penny, only one penny, wliicli Eliza- 
beth, lagging behind, bought, and found it only a broken-off 
hud stuck on a bit of wire. 

“ ThaPs London ways, I suppose, said she, severely, and 
became so misanthropic^ that she would hardly vouchsafe a 
glance to the handsome square they turned into, and merely 
observed of the tall houses— taller than any Hilary had ever 
seen, that she wouldnT fancy running up and -down them 
stairs. 

But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. She was glad to be 
in this region, which theoretically she knew by heart — glad to 
find herself in the body where in the spirit she had come so 
many a time. The mere consciousness of this seemed to re- 
fresh her. . She thought she would be much happier in Lon- 
don; that in the long years to come that must be borne, it 
would be good for her to have something to do as well as to 
hope for, something to fight with as well as to endure. Now 
more than ever came pulsing in and out of her memory a line 
once repeated m her hearing, with an observation of how true'*'’ 
it was. And though originally it was applied by a man to a 
woman, and she smiled sometimes to think how unfcminine 
some people — Selina, for instance — Avould consider her turning 
it the other way, still she did so. She believed that, for woman 
as for man, that is the purest and noblest love which is the 
most self-existent, most independent of love returned, and 
which can say each to the other equally on both sides that the 
whole solemn purpose of life is, under God's service, 

“ If not to win, to feel more worthy of thee.” 

Such thoughts, made her step firmer and her heart lighter, 
so that she hardly noticed the distance they must have walked 
till the close London air began to oppress her, and the smooth 
glaring London pavements made her Stowbury feet ache sorely. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


79 


Are 3^ou tired, Elizabeth? Well, wee’ll rest soon. There 
must be lodgings near here. Only I can’t quite make out — ” 

As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of the street, the maid 
noticed what a glow came into her mistress’s face, pale and 
tired as it was. Just then a church clock struck the quarter 
hour. 

‘‘ That must be St. Pancras. And this, yes, this is Burton 
Street, Burton Crescent.” 

I’m sure missis wouldn’t like to live there,” observed 
Elizabeth, eying uneasily the gloomy rez-de-vhaiissee, familial 
to many a generation of struggling respectability, where, in 
the decadence of the season, every second house bore the an- 
nouncement apartments furnished.” 

‘‘ No,^’ Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she continued 
to walk up and down the whole length of the street; then 
passed out into the dreary, deserted -looking Orescent, where 
the trees were already beginning to fade; not, however, 'into 
the bright autumn tint of country woods, but into a premature 
withering, ugly and sad to behold. 

“ I am glad he is not here — glad, glad!” thought Hilary, as 
she realized the ijnutterable dreariness of those years when 
Kobert Lyon lived and studied in his garret from month’s end 
to month’s end — these few dusty trees being the sole memento 
of the green country life in which he had been brought up, 
and which she knew he so passionately loved. Now she could 
imderstand that calenture ” which he had sometimes jest- 
ingly alluded to as coming upon him at times, when he felt 
literally sick for the sight of a green field or a hedge full of 
birds. She wondered whether the same feeling would ever 
come upon her in this strange desert of London, the vastness 
of which grew upon her every hour. 

She was glad he was away — yes, heart glad! And yet, if 
this minute she could only have seen him coming round the 
Crescent; have met his smile, and the firm, warm clasp of his 
hand — 

For an instant there rose up in her one of those wild, rebel- 
lious outcries against fate, when to have to waste years of this 
brief life of ours in ’the sort of semi-existence that living is, 
apart from the treasure of the heart and delight of the eyes, 
seems so cruelly, cruelly hard ! 

Miss Hilary — ” 

She started, and put herself under lock and key ” imme- 
diately. 


80 MISTRESS AND MAID. 

and get rested and fed. We can not afford to wear ourselves 
out, you know. We have a great deal to do to-day. 

; More indeed than she calculated, for they walked up one 
street and* down another, investigating at least twenty lodgings 
before any appeared wliich seemed fit for them. Yet some 
place must be found where Johanna^s poor tired head could 
rest that night. At last, completely exhausted, with that op- 
pressive exhaustion which seems to crush mfnd as well as body 
after a day^s wandering in London, Hilary^s courage began to 
ebb. Oh, for an arm to lean on, a voice to listen for, a brave 
heart to come to her side, saying, ‘‘ Do not be afraid, there are 
two of us!^^ And she yearned, with an absolutely sick yearn- 
ing such as only a woman who now and then feels the utter help- 
lessness of her womanhood can know, for the only arm she 
cared to lean on, the only voice dear enough to bring her com- 
fort, the only heart she felt she could trust. 

Poor Hilary! And yet why pity her? To her three alter- 
natives could but happen; were Eobert Lyon true to- her, she 
would be his, entirely and devotedly, to the end of her days; 
did he forsake her, she would forgive him; should he die, she 
would be faithful to him eternally. Love of this kind may 
know anguish, but not the sort of angui^ that lesser and 
weaker loves do. If it is certain of nothing else, it can always 
be certain of itself. 

“ Its will is strong: 

It suffers; but it can not suffer long.” 

And even in its utmost pangs is an underlying peace which 
often approaches to absolute joy. 

Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind steadily on lodgings 
till she discovered one, from the parlor of which you could see 
the trees of Burton Crescent and hear the sound of St. Pan- 
eras ^s clock. 

I think we inay do here — at least for awhile, said she, 
cheerfully; and then Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an extra 
bedroom could be had if necessary. 

There was only one small attic. Ascott never could put 
up with that,'^ said Hilary, half to herself. Then suddenly — 
I think I will see* Ascott before I decide. Elizabeth, will 
you go with me, or remain here?^’ 

‘ ‘■ITl go with you if you please. Miss Hilary. 

If yon. please sounded not unlike “ if i please, and 
Elizabeth had gloomed over a- little. “ Is Mr. Ascott to live 
with us?^' 

I suppose so/ ^ 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


81 


No more words were interchanged till they reached Gower 
Street, when Miss Hilary observed, with evident surprise, what 
a handsome street it was. - 

‘‘I must have made some mistake. Still we will find out 
Mr. A sooth’s number, and inquire.-’^ 

No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott Leaf had lodged 
there for three months, but had given up his rooms that very 
morning. 

Where had he gone to?^'’ . 

The servant — a London lodging-house servant all over — 
didn't know; but she fetched the landlady, who was after the 
same pattern of the dozen London landladies* with whom 
Hilary had that day made acquaintance, only a little more 
Cockney, smirking, dirty, and tawdrily fine. 

“Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn't left no address. 
Young college gentlemen often found it convenient to leave no 
address. P'r'aps he would if he'd known there would be a 
young lady a-calling to see him. " 

“ I am Mr. Leaf's aunt," said Hilary, turning as hot as fire. 

“ Oh, in-deed," was the answer, with civil incredulousness. 

But the woman was sharp of perception, as often-cheated 
London landladies learn to be. After looking keenly at mis- 
tress and maid, she changed her tone, nay, even launched out 
in praises of her late lodger; what a pleasant gentleman he 
was; what good company he kept, and how he had promised 
to recommend her apartments to his friends. 

“ And as for the little some 'at of rent, miss, tell him it 
makes no matter; he can pay me when he likes. If he don't 
call soon, p'r'aps I might make bold to send his trunk and his 
books over to Mr. Ascott 's of — dear me, I forget the number 
and the square. 

Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both. 

“ Yes, that's it — the old gen'leman as Mr. Leaf went to dine 
with every other Sunday — a very rich old gentleman, who, he 
says, is to leave him all his money. May be a relation of 
yours, miss?" 

“ No," said Hilary; and adding something about the land- 
lady's hearing from Mi*. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of the 
house, Elizabeth following. 

“ Won't you be tired if you walk so fast. Miss Hilary?" 

Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and 
down the forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street, now sinking into 
the dull shadow of a London afternoon. 

“ Let us go home!" And at the word a sob burst out— just 


82 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


one passionate pent-up sob. No more. She could not afford 
to waste strength in crjdng. 

“ As you say, Ehzabeth, I am getting tired, and that will not 
do. Let me see; something must be decided. And she stood 
still, passing her hand over her hot brow and eyes. “ I will 
go back and take the lodgings, leave you there to make all 
comfortable, and then fetch my sisters from the hotel. But 
stay first; I have forgotten something. 

She returned to the house in Oower Street, and wrote on one 
of her cards an address— the only permanent address she could 
think of — that of the city broker who was in the habit of pay- 
ing them their yearly income of £50. 

‘‘ If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. 
His friends may always hear of him at the London University. 

“ Thank you, ma'am,'" replied the now civil landlady. 
‘‘ Indeed, I wasn't, afraid of the young gentleman giving us 
the slip; for, though he was careless in his bills; he was every 
inch the gentleman. And I wouldn't object to take him in 
again. Or p'r'aps you yourself, ma'am, might be a-wanting 
rooms." 

“No, I thank you. Grood-morning. " And Hilary hurried 
away. 

Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to her, till 
they got into the dull, dingy parlor — henceforth to be their 
sole apology for “home;" and then she only talked about 
domestic arrangements — talked fast and eagerly, and tried to 
escape the affectionate eyes which she knew were so sharp and 
keen. Only to escape them — not to blind them; she had long 
ago found out that Elizabeth was too quick-witted for that, 
especially in anything that concerned “ the family." She felt 
convuiced the girl had heard every syllable that passed at 
Ascott's lodgings: that she kne\V all that was to be known, 
and guessed what was to be feared as well as Hilary herself. 

“ Elizabeth " — she hesitated long, and- doubted whether she 
should say the thing before she did say it — “ remember we are 
all strangers in London, and family matters are best kept 
within the family. Do not mention either in writing home, or 
to anybody here, about — about — " 

She could not name Ascott, she felt so horribly ashamed. 


CHAPTER X. 

Livimg in lodgings, not temporarily, but permanently, sit- 
ting down to make one's only “ home '' in Mrs. Jones's parlor 
or Mrs. Smithes first-floor, of which not a stick or a stone that 


MISTKESS AKD MATD. 


83 


on6 looks at is one^s own, and whence one may be evicted or 
evade, with a week^s notice or a Weeks’s rent, any day — this 
sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. 
There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an 
errant disposition, that, grow them where you will, they will 
soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin 
casting out runners elsewhere; nay, if not frequently trans- 
planted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the 
pioneers of society — the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers 
round the world; and great is the advantage the world derives 
from them, active, energetic, and impulsive as they are — un- 
less, indeed, their talent for incessant locomotion degenerates 
into rootless restlessness, and they remain forever rolling 
stones, gathering no moss, and acquiring gradually a .smooth, 
hard surface, which adheres to nothing, and to which nobody 
dare venture to adhere. 

But there are others possessing in a painful degree this said 
quality of adhesiveness, to whom the smallest change is obnox- 
ious; who like drinking out of a particular cup, and sitting in 
a particular chair; to -v^^hom even a variation in the position of 
furniture is unpleasant. Of course, this peculiarity has its bad 
side, and yet it is not in itself mean or ignoble. For is not 
adhesiveness, faithfulness, constancy — call it what you will — 
at the root of all citizenship, clanship, and family love? Is it 
not the same feeling which, granting they remain at all, makes 
old friendships dearer than any new? Nay, to go to the very 
sacredest and closest bond, is it not that which makes an old 
man see to the last in his old wife^s faded face the beauty 
which perhaps nobody ever saw except himself, but which he 
sees and delights in still, simply because it is familiar and his 
own? 

To people who possess a large share of this rare — shall I say 
fatal ?-^characteristic of adhesiveness, living in lodgings is 
about the saddest life under the sun. Whether some dim 
foreboding of this fact crossed Elizabeth's mind as she stood 
at the window watching for her mistresses' first arrival at 
‘‘ home " it is impossible to say. She could feel, though she 
was not accustomed to analyze her feelings. But she looked 
dull and sad — not cross; even Ascott could not have accused 
her of “ savageness." 

And yet she had been somewhat tried. First, in going out 
what she termed marketing," she had traversed a waste of 
streets, got lost several times, and returned with light weight 
in her butter, and sand in her moist sugar; also with the con- 
viction that London tradesmen were the greatest rogues alive. 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


84 

Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, which she had bought with 
her own money to grace the tea-table with the only fruit Miss 
Leaf cared for, had turned out a large delusion, big and beau- 
tiful, at top, and all below small, crushed, and ^ale. She had 
thrown it indignantly, pottle and all, into the kitchen fire. 

Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the sub- 
ject of their fire — which, with her Stowbury notions on the 
subject of coals, seemed wretchedly mean and small — and 
partly on the question of table-clothes at tea, which Mrs. Jones 
had never heard of,^^ especially when the use of plate and 
linen was included. in the rent. And the dinginess of the 
article produced at last out of an omnium-gather iwi sort of 
kitchen cupboard made an omnious impression upon the coun- 
try girl, accustomed to clean, tidy country ways — where the 
kitchen was kept as neat as the parlor, and the bedrooms were 
not a whit behind the sitting-rooms in comfort and orderliness. 
Here it seemed as if, supposing people could show a few re- 
spectable living-rooms, they were content to sleep anywhere, 
and cook anyhow, out of anything,, in the midst of any quantity 
of confusion and dirt. Elizabetli set all tliis down as “ Lon- 
don, and hated it accordingly. 

She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rearrang- 
ing the furniture’ — regular lodging-house furniture — table, six 
chairs, horse-hair sofa, a what-not, and the chhfonnier, with a 
tea-caddy upon it, of which the respective keys had been 
solemnly presented to Miss Hilary. But still the parlor looked 
homeless and bare; and the yellowish paper on the walls, the 
large-patterned, many-colored Kidderminster on the floor, 
gave an involuntary sense of discomfort and dreariness. Be- 
sides, Ko. 15 was on the shady side of the street — cheap lodg- 
ings always are; and no one who has not lived in the like lodg- 
mgs — not a house — can imagine what it is to inhabit perpetual- 
ly one room where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a 
day, and vanishes by eleven A. m. , leaving behind in winter a 
chill dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, 
that weighs like lead on the spirits in spite of one’s self. Ko 
wonder that, as is statistically known and proved, cholera 
stalks, fever rages, and the registrar’s list is always swelled 
along the shady side of a London street. 

Elizabeth felt this, though she had not the dimmest idea 
why. She stood watchmg the sunset light fade out of the top- 
most windows of the opposite house — ghostly reflection of some 
sunset over fields and trees far away; and she listened to the 
long, monotonous cry melting away round the Crescent, and 
beginning again at the other ejid of the street — “ Straw-ber- 


MISTRESS AKT) MATE. 


85 


ries — straw-ber-ries!^* Also_, with an eye to to-moi’row’s Sun- 
day dinner, she investigated the cart of the tired costermonger, 
who crawled along beside his equally tired donkey; reiterating 
at times, in tones hoarse with a day^'s bawling, his dreary 
“ Cauli-fiow-er! cauli-flow-er! — Fine new pease, sixpencepeck!"^ 
But, alas! the pease were neither fine nor new; and the cauli- 
flowers were regular Saturday night^s cauliflowers. Besides, 
Elizabeth suddenly doubted whether she had any right, un- 
ordered, to buy these things, which, from being common gar- 
den necessaries, had become luxuries. This thought, with 
some others that it occasioned, her unwonted state of idleness, 
and the dullness of everything about her — what is so dull as a 
quiet London street on a summer evening? — actually made 
Elizabeth stand, motionless and meditative, for a quarter of 
an hour. 

Then she started to hear two cabs drive up to the door; the 
family had at length arrived. 

Ascott was there too. Two new portmanteaus and a splen- 
did hat-box cast either ignominy or glory upon the poor Stow- 
bury luggage; and — Elizabeth^’s sharp eyes noticed — there was 
also his trunk, which she had seen lying detained for rent in 
his Gower Street lodgings. But he looked quite easy and com- 
fortable; handed out his aunt Johanna, commanded the lug- 
gage about, and paid the cabmen with such a magnificent air 
that they touched their hats to him, and winked at one an- 
other, as much as to say, That^s a real gentleman!” 

In which statement the landlady evidently coincided, and 
courtesied low when Miss Leaf, introducing him as “ my neph- 
ew, hoped that a room could be found for him, which at last 
there was, by his appropriating Miss Leaf^s, while she and 
Hilary took that at the top of the house. But they agreed 
Ascott must have a good airy room to study in. 

You know, my dear boy,” said his aunt Johanna to him 
— and at her tender tone he looked a little downcast, as when 
he was a small fellow and had been forgiven something — you 
know you will have to work very hard.” 

‘‘ All right, aimt! I'^m your man for that! This will be a 
jolly room; and I can smoke up, the chimney capitally.” 

So they came down-stairs quite cheerfully, and Ascott applied 
himself with the best of appetites to what he called a “ hun- 
gry ” tea. True, the ham, which Elizabeth had to fetch from 
an eating-house some streets ofl, cost two shillings a pound, 
and the eggs, which caused her another war below over the 
relighting of a fire to boil them, were dismissed by the young 
gentleman as ‘‘horrid stale.” Still, woman-like, when there 


86 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


is a man in the question, his aunts let him have his way. ft 
seemed as if they had resolved to try their utmost to make the 
new home to wliich he came, or rather was driven, a pleasant 
home, and to bind him to it with cords of love, the only cords 
worth anything, though sometimes — Heaven knows why — even 
they fail, and are snapped and thrown aside like straws. 

Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of the parlor she always 
heard lively talk - going on among the family: Ascott making 
liis jokes, telling about liis college life, and planning his life to 
come, as a surgeon in full practice, on the most extensive scale. 
And when she brought in the chamber candles, she saw him 
kiss his aunts affectionately, and even help his aunt Johanna 
— who looked frightfully pale and tired, but smiling still — to 
her bedroom door. 

Youffl not sit up long, my dear? Ho reading to-night ?^^ 
said she, anxiously. 

‘‘ Hot a bit of it. And Iffl be up with the lark to-morrow 
morning. I really will, auntie. I^m going to turn over a new 
leaf, you know.^^ 

She smiled again at the immemorial joke, kissed and blessed 
him, and the door shut upon her and Hilary. 

Ascott descended to the parlor, threw himself on the sofa 
with an air of great rehef, and an exclamation- of satisfaction 
that ‘‘ the women were all gone. He did not perceive Eliza- 
beth, who, liidden behind, was kneeling to arrange something 
m the chiffonnier, till she rose up and proceeded to fasten tlie 
parlor shutters. 

‘‘ Halloo! are vou ihere? Come, Iff! do tha't when I go to 
bed. You may ‘ slope, ^ if you like.^^ 

Eh, sir?7 

“ Slope, mizzle, cut your stick; don^t you understand? Any- 
how, donY stop here bothering me. ” 

'' I don't mean to," replied Elizabeth, gravely rather than 
gruffly, as if she had made up her mind to thmgs as they were, 
and was determined to be a belligerent party no longer. Be- 
sides, she was older now — too old to have things forgiven to 
her that might be overlooked in a child ; and she had received 
a long lecture from Miss gilary on the necessity of showmg 
respect to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. Leaf, as it was now decided he 
was to be called, in his dignity and responsibility as the only 
masculine head of the family. 

As he lay and lounged there, with his eyes lazily shut, Eliza- 
beth stood a minute gazing at him. Then, steadfast in her 
new good behavior, she inquired ‘‘ if he wanted anything more 
to-night. " 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


87 


‘‘Confound you, no! Yes; stop.’^ And the young man 
took a furtive investigation of the plain, honest face, and not 
oyergraceful, ultra.-provincial figure which still characterized 
his aunt's “ South Sea Islander.” 

“ I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do something for me." 
He spoke so civilly, almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turned 
romid surprised. “ Would you just go and ask the landlady 
if she has got such a thing as a latch-key?" 

‘‘ A what, sir?" 

“ A latch-key — a — oh, she knows. Every London house 
has it. Tell her I'll take care of it, and lock the front door 
all right. She needn't be afraid of thieves." 

“ Very well, sir." 

Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared with the information 
that Mrs. Jones hM gone to bed — in the kitchen, she supposed, 
as she could not get in. But she laid on the table the large 
street-dooi’ key. 

“ Perhaps that's what you wanted,. Mr. Leaf. Though I 
think you needn't be the least afraid of robbers, for there's 
three bolts, and a chain besides. " 

“ AU right!" cried Ascott, smothering down a laugh. 
“ Thank you! That's for you," throwing a half crown across 
the table. 

Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it down again. Per- 
haps she did not like him enough to receive presents from him; 
perhaps she thought, being an honest-minded girl, that a young 
man who could not pay his rent had no business to be giving away 
half crowns; or else she herself had not been, so much as many 
servants are, in the habit of taking them. For Miss Hilary 
had put into Elizabeth some of her own feeling as to this habit 
of paying an inferior with money for any little civility or kind- 
ness which, from an equal, woid be accepted simply as kind- 
ness, and only requited with thanks. Anyhow, the coin re- 
mained on the table, and the door was just shutting on 
Elizabeth, when the young gentleman turned round again. 

“ I say, since my aunts are so horridly timid of robbers and 
such like, you'd better not tell them anythmg about the latch- 
key." 

Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and then replied briefly, 
“ Miss Hilary isn't a bit timid; and I always tells Miss Hilary 
everything. " 

Nevertheless, though she was so ignorant as never to have 
heard of a latch-key, she had the wit to see that all was not 
right. She even lay awake, in her closet of Miss Leaf's room, 
whence she could hear the murmur of her two mistresses talk- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


^8 

ing together long after they retked— lay broad awake for an 
hour or more^ trying to put t h ings together — the sad things 
that she felt certain must haye happened that day, and won- 
dering what Mr. Ascott could possibly want . with the key. 
Also, why he had asked her about it, instead of telling his 
aimts at once; and why he had treated her in the matter with 
such astonishing civility. 

It maybe said r servant had no business to think about 
these things, to criticise her young master^s proceedings, or 
wonder why her mistresses were sad : that she had only to go 
about her work like an automaton, and take no interest m any- 
thing. I can only answer to those who like such service, let 
them have it; and as they sow they will assuredly reap. 

But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was soundly 
snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, 
after a brief mutual pretense of sleep soon discovered by both, 
lay consulting together over ways and means. How could the 
family expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week 
as rent, possibly be met by the only actual certain family in- 
come, their £50 per annum from a mortgage? For the Misses 
Leaf were of that old-fashioned stamp which believed that to 
reckon an income by mere probabilities is either insanity or 
dishonesty. 

Oommon arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could 
not maintain them; in fact, they must soon draw on the little 
sum — already dipped into to-day for Ascott^which had been 
produced by the sMe of the Stowbury furniture. That sale, 
they now found, had^been a mistake; and they half feared 
whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had not 
been a mistake — one of those sad errors in judgment which we 
all commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the 
best of, and' learn from if we can. Happy those to whom 
“ Dinna greet ower spilt milk — -a proverb wise as cheerful, 
which Hilary, knowing well who it came from, repeated to 
Johanna to- comfort her — teaches a second brave lesson, how 
to avoid spilling the milk a second time. 

And then they consulted anxiously about what was to be 
done to earn money. 

Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days 
women's work and women's rights had not been discussed so 
freely as at present. There was a strong feeling that the prin- 
cipal thing required was our duties — owed to ourselves, our 
home, our family and friends. There was a deep conviction — 
now, alas! slowly disappearing — that a woman, single or mar- 
ried, should never throw herself out of the safe circle of 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


89 


domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it is 
wiser to ^ keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to ex- 
pend its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, 
mid, by the law that “ prevention is better than cure,^^ study- 
ing all those preservative means of holding a family together — 
as women, and women alone can — than to dash into men^s 
sphere of trades and professions, thereby in most instances 
fighting an unequal battle, and coming out of it maimed, 
broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are neither men nor 
women, with the faults. and corresponding sufferings of both, 
and the compensations of neither. 

“ I don^t see,^^ said poor Hilary, “ what I can do but teach. 
And oh, if I could only get daily pupils, so that I might come 
home of. nights, and creep into the fireside, and have time to 
mend the stockings and look after Ascott^s linen, so that he 
need not be so awfully extravagant!'’^ 

'“It is Ascott who ought to earn the family income, and 
have his aunts to keep house for him,^^ observed Johanna. 
“ That was the way in my time, and I believe it is the right 
way. The man ought to go out into the world and earn the 
money; the woman ought to stay at home and wisely expend 
it.-’^ 

“ And yet that way is not always possible. We know of 
ourselves instances where it was not. 

“ Ah ! yes/’ assented J ohanna, sighing; for she, far more than 
Hilary, viewed the family circumstances in the light of its past 
history — a light too sad almost to bear looking at. “ But in 
ours, as in most similar cases, was something not right, some- 
thing which forced men and wom^n out of their natural places. 
It is a thing that may be sometimes a mournful, inevitable 
necessity; but I never can believe it a right thing, or a thing 
to be voluntarily imitated, that women should go knocking 
about the world like men — and — 

“ And I am not meaning to do any such thing, said Hilary, 
half laughing. “ I am only gomg to try every rational means 
of earning a little money to keep the family going till such 
time as Ascott can decide on his future, and find a suitable 
opportunity for establishing himself in practice. In some of 
the new neighborhoods about London he says he has a capital 
chance; he will immediately set about inquiries. A good idea, 
donT you think 

“ Yes,'’^ said Johanna, briefly. But tliey did not discuss this 
as they had discussed their own plans; and it was noticeable 
they never even referred to, as a portion of the family 
finances, that pound a week which, with many regrets that it 


90 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


was SO small, Ascott had insisted on paying to his aunts as his 
contribution to the expenses of the household. 

And now the dawn was beginning to break, and the lively 
London sparrows to chirp in the chimneys. So -Hilary insisted 
on their talking no more, but going to sleep, like Christians. 

“Very well. Good-night, my blessing!'^ said Johanna, 
softly. And perhaps, indeed, her “blessing,^" mth that 
strange, bright courage of her own — years after, when Hilary 
- looked back upon her old self, how utterly mad this courage 
seemed! — had taken the weight of care from the elder and 
feebler heart, so that Johanna turned round and soon slept. 

But long after, till the dawn melted into perfect daylight, 
did Hilary lie, open-eyed, listening to quarter after quarter of 
the loud St. Pancras clock. Brave she was, this little woman, 
fully as brave and cheerful-hearted as, for Johan na^s sake, she 
made herself out to be; and now that the paralyzed monotony 
of her Stowbury life was gone, and that she was in the midst of 
the whirl of London, where he used to work and struggle, she 
felt doubly bright and brave. The sense, of resistance, of 
dogged perseverance, of “ fightmg it out to the last, was 
strong in her, stronger than in most women, or else it was the 
reflection in her own of that nature which was her ideal of 
eveiything great and good. 

“ No,^^ she said to herself, after thinking over for the hun- 
dredth time every difficulty that lay before them all — meeting 
and looking in -the face every wild beast in the way, even that 
terrible beast which, happily, had often approached but never 
yet visited the Leaf family, “ the wolf at the door “ no, I 
donT think I am afraid. I think I shall never be afraid of 
anything^ in this world if only — only — 

“If only he loves me. That was it which broke off un- 
spoken; the helpless woman'’ s cry — the cruel craving for the 
one deepest want of a woman^s life— -deeper than the same 
want in man^s, or in most men^s, because it is moremdividual; 
not if only I am loved, but “ if only he loves me.'’^ And 
as Hilary resolutely shut her eyes, and forced her aching head 
into total stillness, sharper than ever, as always was the case 
when she felt weary, mentally or physically, came her longing f or 
the hand to cling to, the breast to lean against — the heart at 
once strong and tender, which even the bravest woman feels 
at Jimes she piteously needs. A heart which can comfort and 
uphold her, with the strength not of another woman like her- 
self, but of a man, encouraging her, as perhaps her very weak- 
ness encourages him, to “ fight it out,"" the sore battle of life. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 91 

a little longer. But this support, in any shape, from any man, 
the women of the Leaf family had never known. 

The nearest approach to it were those letters from India, 
which had become, Johanna sometimes jestingly said, a family 
institution. For they were family letters; there was no mys- 
tery about them; they were passed from one to the other, and 
commented on in perfect freedom — so freely, indeed, that 
Sehna had never penetrated into the secret of them at all. 
But their punctuality, their faithful remembrance of the 
smallest things concerning the past, their strong interest in 
anytliing and everything belonging to the present of these his 
old friends, were to the other two sisters confirmation enough 
as to how they might believe in Robert Lyon. 

Hilary did believe, and in her perfect trust was perfect rest. 
Whether he ever married her or not, she felt sure — surer and 
surer every day — ^that to her had been sent that best blessing — 
the lot of so few women — a thoroughly good man to love her 
and to love. 

So with his face in her memory, and the sound of his voice 
in her ear as distinctly as if it had been Only yesterday that he 
said, “You must trust me, Hilary,'’^ she whispered to herself, 
“ I do, Robert, I do!^^ and went to sleep peacefully as a child. 


CHAPTER XL 

With a sublime indifference to popular superstition, or, 
rather, because they did not think of it till all their arrange- 
ments were completed, the Misses Leaf had accomplished their 
grand hegira on a Friday. Consequently, their first day at 
No. 15 was Sunday. 

Sunday in London always strikes a provincial person con- 
siderably. - It has two such distinct sides. First, the eminently 
respectable, decorous, religious side, which Hilary and Selina 
observed when, about 11a.m., they joined the stream of well- 
dressed, well-to-do-looking people, solitary or in families, who 
poured forth from handsome houses in streets or squares, to 
form the crowded congregation of St. Pancras^s Church. The 
opposite side Hilary also saw when Ascott, who, in spite of his 
declaration, had not risen in time for breakfast, penitently 
coaxed his “ pretty aunt to let him take her to the afternoon 
service in Westminster Abbey. They wended their way 
through Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street, Regent Street, 
and across the park, finding shops open or half open, vehicles 
plying, and people streaming down each side of the streets. 

Hilary did not quite like it, and yet her heart was tender over 




MISTRESS AKD MAID, 


the poor, hard-worked-looking Cockneys, who seemed so ex- 
cessively to enjoy their . Sunday stroll, their Sunday mouthful 
of fresh air; or the small Sunday treat their sickly, undersized 
children had in lying on the grass, and feeding the ducks in 
St. Jameses Park. 

She tried to talk the matter out with Ascott, but, though he 
listened politely for a minute or two, he evidently took no in- 
terest in such things. Nor did he even in the grand old abbey, 
with its tree-like, arched avenues of immemorial stone, its 
painted windows, through which the colored sunshine m^de a 
sort of heavenly mist of* light, and its innumerable graves of 
generations below. Hilary woke from her trance of solemn 
delight to find her nephew amusing himself with staring at the 
people about him, making sotto voce quizzical remarks upon 
them in the intervals of the service, and, finally, the instant it 
was ended, starting up in extreme satisfaction, evidently feel- 
ing that he had done his duty, and that it had been, to use his 
own phrase, “ a confomided bore. 

Yet he meant to be kind to his pretty aunt — told her he 
liked to walk with her because she was so pretty, praised her 
dress, so neat and tasteful, though a little old-fashioned. But 
he would soon alter that, he said; he would dress all his aunts 
in silk and satin, and give them a carriage to ride in; there 
should be no end to their honor and prosperity. Nay, com- 
ing home, he took her a long way round — or she thought so, 
being tired — ^to show her the sort of house he meant to have. 
Very grand it seemed to her Stowbury eyes, with pillars and a 
flight of steps up to the door— more fit, she ventured to sug- 
gest, for a retired merchant than a struggling young surgeon. 

Oh, but we dare not show the struggle, or nobody would 
ever trust us,’" said Ascott, with a knowing look. “ Bless you, 
many a young fellow sets up a house, and even a carriage, on 
tick, and drives and drives about till he drives liimself into a 
practice. The world"s all a make-believe, and you must meet 
humbug with humbug. That"s the way, I assure you. Aunt 
Hilary."" 

Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the lad"s face— the 
lad, so little younger than herself, and yet who at times, when 
he let out sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, so pitifully 
old; and she felt thankful that, at all risks arid costs, they had 
come to London to be beside him, to help him, to save him. if 
he needed saving, as women only can. For, after all, he was 
but a boy. And though, as he walked by her side, stalwart 
and manly, the thought smote her painfully that many a 
young fellow of his age was the stay and bread-winner of some 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


93 


widowed mother or sister, nay, even of wife and child, still she 
repeated, cheerfully, ‘‘ What can one expect from him? He is 
only a boy/ ^ 

God help the women who, for those belonging to them — 
husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons — have ever so tender- 
ly to apologize. 

When they came in sight of St. Pancras^’s Church, Ascott 
said, suddenly, I think you ^11 know your way now. Aunt 
Hilary. 

Certainly. Why?'’' 

‘‘ Because — you wouldn't be vexed if I left you? I have an 
engagement — some fellows that I dine with, out at Hamp- 
stead, or Eichmond, or Black wall, every Simday. Nothing 
wicked, I assure you. And you know it's capital for one's 
health to get a Sunday in fresh air. " 

“Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you. " 

“ Will she? Oh, you'll smooth her down. Stay! Tell her 
I'll be back to tea. " 

“We shall be having tea directly." 

“ I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt Hilary, you must 
change your hours. They don't suit me at all. No men can 
ever stand early dinners. By, by! You are the very prettiest 
auntie. Be sure you get home safe. , Halloo, there ! That's 
my omnibus. " 

He jumped on top of it and was off. 

Aunt Hilary stood, quite confounded, and with one of those 
strange sinkings of the heart which had come over her several 
times this day. It was not that Ascott showed any mikindness 
— that there was any actual badness in his bright and hand- 
some young face. Still there was a want there — want of 
earnestness, steadfastness, trutlifulness, a something more dis- 
coverable as the lack of something else than as aught in itself 
tangibly and perceptibly wrong. It made her sad;, it caused 
her to look forward to his future with an anxious heart. It 
was so different from the kind of, anxiety, and yet settled re- 
pose, with which she thought of the only other man in whose 
future she felt the smallest interest. Of Kobert Lyon she was 
certain that whatever misfortune visited liim he would bear it 
in the best way it could be borne; whatever temptation assailed 
him he would fight against it, as a brave and good Christian 
should fight. But Ascott? 

Ascott 's life was yet an unanswered query. She could but 
leave it in Omnipotent hands. 

So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of civil 
policemen, and going a little distance round — dare I make this 


94 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


romantic confession about so sensible and practical a little 
woman? — ^that she might walk once up Burton Street and down 
again. But nobody knew the fact, and it did nobody any 
harm. 

Meantime at No. 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough. 
Miss Selina had gone to lie down — she always did of Sundays, 
and Elizabeth, after making her comfortable by the little atten- 
tions the lady always required, had descended to the dreary 
wash-house, which had been appropriated to herself under the 
name of a “ private kitchen, in the which, after all the clean- 
ings and improvements she could ' achieve, she sat like Marius 
among the ruins of Carthage, and sighed for the tidy bright 
house-place at Stowbury. Already, from her brief experience, 
she had decided that London people were horrid shams, because 
they did not in the least care to have their kitchens comforta- 
ble. She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and 
might have carried her sad and sullen face upstairs if Miss Leaf 
had not come down-stairs, and glancing about, with that ever- 
gentle smile of hers, said kindly, Well, it is not very pleas- 
ant, but you have made the best of it, Ehzabeth. We must 
all put up with something, you know. Now, as my eyes are 
not very good to-day, suppose you come up and read me a 
chapter. 

So, in the quiet parlor, the maid sat down opposite her mis- 
tress, and read aloud out of that Book which says distinctly. 
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters accord- 
ing to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, 
as unto Christ: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man 
doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be 
bond or free. 

And yet says immediately after, 

“Ye masters, do the same things mito them, forbearing 
threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; 
neither is there respect of persons with Him. 

And I think that Master \\diom Paul served, not in preaching 
only, but also in practice, when he sent back the slave Onesi- 
mus to Philemon, praying that he might be received, “ not 
now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved,^’ that 
divine Master must liave looked tenderly upon these two wom- 
en — both women, though of such different age and position, 
and taught them through his Spirit in his Word, as only he 
can teach. 

The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to the 
door, and a knock, a tremulously grand and forcible footman’s 
knock, which made Miss Leaf start in her easy-chair. • 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


95 


But it can^t be visitors to us. We know nobody. Sit still, 
Elizabeth. 

It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity he found 
them out remained, when they came to think of it, a great 
puzzle. A card was sent in by the dirty servant of Mrs. Jones, 
speedily followed by a stout, feld-headed, round-faced man — I 
suppose I ought to write gentleman — in whom, though she 
had not seen him for years. Miss Leaf found no difficulty in 
recognizing the grocer^s ^prentice-boy, now Mr. Peter Ascofct, 
of Russell Square. 

She rose to receive him : there was always a statehness in 
Miss Leaf’s reception of strangers; a slight formality belong- 
ing to her own past generation, and to the time when the Leafs 
were a ‘‘ county family. Perhaps this extra dignity, grace- 
ful as it was, overpowerq,d the little man, or else, being a 
bachelor, he was unaccustomed to ladies’ society; but he grew 
red in the face, twiddled his hat, and then cast a sharp in- 
quisitive glance toward her. 

‘‘ Miss Leaf, I presume, ma’am. The eldest?” 

“ I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad to have an oppor- 
tunity of thanking you for your long kindness to my nephew. 
Elizabeth, give Mr. Ascott a chair.” 

While doing so, and before her disppearance, Elizabeth took 
a rapid observation of the visitor, whose name and history 
were perfectly familiar to her. ' Most small towns have their 
hero, and Stowbury’s was Peter Ascott, the grocer’s boy, the 
little fellow who had gone up to London to seek his fortune, 
and had, strange to say, found it. Whether by industry or 
luck — except that industry is luck, and luck is only another 
word for industry — he had gradually risen to be a large city 
merchant, a dry-salter I conclude it would be called, with a 
handsome house, carriage, etc. He had never revisited his 
native place, which indeed could not be expected of him, as he 
had no relations, but when asked, as was not seldom, of course 
he subscribed liberally to its charities. 

Altogether he was a decided hero in the place; and though 
people really knew very little about him, the less they knew 
the more they gossiped, holding him up to the rising genera- 
tion as , a modern Dick IVIiittington, and reverencing him ex- 
tremely as one who had shed glory on his native town. Even 
Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. Ascott. When 
she saw this little fat man, coarse and common-looking in spite 
of his good- clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a curious 
mixture of pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed to her- 


96 


MI8TBESS A^rn MAID. 


self, thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about 
whom Stowbury had told so many interesting stories. 

However, she went up to inform ‘Miss Selina,- and prevent 
her making her appearance before him in the usual Sunday 
dishabille in which she indulged when no visitors were expected. 

After the first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became quite 
at his ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk— not of Stow- 
bury, that was tacitly ignored by both— but of London, and 
then of my house* in Russell Square,'’^ niy carriage,^’ 
“ my servants — the inconvenience of keeping coachn^en who 
would drink, and footmen who would not clean the plate prop- 
erly; ending by what was a favorite moral axiom of his, that 
“ wealth and position are heavy responsibilities.^'’ 

He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite over- 
whelmed by them; he was fat and flourishing — with an acute- 
ness and power in the upper half of his face which accounted 
for his having attained his present position. The lower half — 
somehow Miss Leaf did not like it, she hardly knew why, 
though a physiognomist might have known. For Peter Ascott 
had the miderhanging, obstinate, sensual lip, the large throat 
■ — bull-necked, as it has been called — indications of that essen- 
tially animal nature which may be born with the nobleman as 
with the clown; which no education can refine, and no talent, 
though it may coexist with it, can ever entirely remove. He 
reminded one, perforce, of the rough old proverb, You can’t 
make a silk purse of a sow’s ear.” 

Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man, though something 
deeper than his glorious indifference to grammar, and his 
dropped h’s — which, to steal some one’s joke, might have 
been swept up in bushels from Miss Leaf’s parlor — made it 
impossible for him ^er to be, by any culture whatever, a gen- 
tleman. 

They talked of Ascott, as being the most convenient mutual 
subject; and Miss Leaf expressed the gratitude which her 
nephew felt, and she earnestly hoped would ever show, toward 
his kind godfather. 

Mr. Ascott looked pleased. 

“ Um — yes, Ascott’s not a bad fellow — believe he mean^ 
well; but weak, ma’am, I’m afraid he’s weak. Knows noth- 
ing of business — has no business habits whatever. However, 
we must make the best of him; I don’t repent anything I’ve 
done for him.” 

‘‘ I hope not,” said Miss Leaf, gravely. 

And then there ensued an uncomfortable pause, which was 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 97 

happily broken by the opening of the door_, and the sweeping 
in of a large^ goodly figure. 

“My sister, Mr. Ascott; my sister Selina.-’^ 

The little stout man actually started, and, as he. bowed, 
blushed up to the eyes. 

Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the beauty of the family, 
and had once been an acknowledged Stowbury belle. Even 
now, though nigh upon forty, when carefully and becomingly 
dressed, her tall figure, and her well-featured, fair-complex- 
ioned, unwrinkled face made her still appear a very personable 
woman. At any rate, she was not faded enough, nor the city 
magnate's heart cold enough, to prevent a sudden revival of 
the vision which — in what now seemed an almost antediluvian 
stage of existence — had dazzled, Sunday after Sunday, the eyes 
of the grocery’s lad If there is -one pure spot in a many’s heart 
—even the very worldliest of men— it is usually his boyish first 
love. 

So Peter Ascott looked hard at Miss Selina, then into his 
hat, then, as good luck would have it, out of the window, 
where he caught sight of his carriage and horses. These re- 
vived his spirits, and made him recognize what he was — Mr. 
Ascott of Russell Square, addressing’ mmself in the character 
of a benevolent patron to the fallen Leaf family. 

“ Glad to see you, miss. Long time since we met — neither 
of us so young as we have been — but you do wear well, I must 
say/" 

Miss Selina drew back; she was within an inch of being 
highly offended, when she too happened to catch a glimpse of the 
carriage and horses. So she sat down and entered into con- 
versation with him; and when she liked, nobody could be more 
polite and agreeable than Miss Selina. 

So it happened that the handsome equipage crawled round 
and round the Crescent, or stood pawing the silent Sunday 
street before No 15 for very nearly an hour, even till Hilary 
came home. 

It was ^vexatious to have to make excuses for Ascott, par- 
ticularly as his godfather said with a laugh that “ young fel- 
lows would be young fellows;^" they needn’t expect to see the 
lad till midnight, or till to-morrow morning. 

But though in this and other things he somewhat annoyed 
the ladies from Stowbury, no one could say he was not civil to 
them — exceedingly civil. He offered them Botanical Garden 
tickets — Zoological Garden tickets; he even, after some medi- 
tation and knitting of his shaggy gray e 3 ^ebrowS; bolted out 
4 


98 


MISTRESS AND MAID« 


with an invitation for the whole family to dinner at Kussell 
Square the following Sunday. . 

“ I always give my dinners on Sunday. I^ve not time any 
other day/^ said he, when Miss Leaf gently hesitated. ‘‘ Come 
or not. Just as you like.'^^ 

Miss Selina, to whom the remark was chiefly addressed, 
bowed the most gracious acceptance. 

The visitor took very little notice of Miss Hilary. Probably, 
if asked, he would have described her as a small, shabbily 
dressed person, looking very like a governess. Indeed the 
fact of her governess-ship seemed suddenly to recur to him; he 
asked her if she meant to set up another school, and being in- 
formed that she rather wished private pupils, promised largely 
that she should have the full beneflt of his “ patronage 
among his friends. Then he departed, leaving a message for 
Ascott to call next day, as he wished to speak to him. 

‘‘For you must be aware. Miss Leaf, that though your 
nephew^s allowance is nothing — a mere drop in the bucket out 
of my large income — still, when it comes year after year, and 
no chance of his shifting for himself, the most benevolent man 
in the world feels inclined, to stop the supplies. Hot that I 
shall do that — at least not immediately: he is a fine young fel- 
low, whom I^m rather proud to have helped a step up the 
ladder, and I’ve a great respect ” — ^here he bowed to Miss 
Selina — “ a great respect for your family. Still there - must 
come a time when I shall be obliged to shut up my purse- 
strings. You. understand, ma’am.” 

‘‘ I do,” Miss Leaf answered, trying to speak with dignity, 
•and yet patience, for she saw Hilary’s face beginning to flame. 
“ And I trust, Mr. Ascott, my nephew will soon cease to be an; 
expense to you. It was your own voluntary kindness that 
brought it upon yourself, and I hope you have not found, never 
will find, either him or us ungrateful.” 

“ Oh, as to that, ma’am, I don’t look for gratitude. Still, 
if Ascott does work his way into a good position — and he’ll be 
the first of his family that ever did, I reckon — but I beg your 
pardon. Miss Leaf. Ladies, I’ll bid you good-day. %Will your 
servant call my carriage?” 

The instant he was gone Hilary burst forth — 

“If I were Ascott, I’d rather starve in a garret, break 
stones in the high-road, or buy a broom and sweep a crossing, 
than I’d be dependent on this man, this pompous, purse- 
proud, illiterate fool!” 

“ Ho, not a fool,” reproved Johanna. “ An acute, clear- 
headed, nor, I think, bad-hearted man. Coarse and common. 


MISTRESS AIST) MAID. 


99 


certainly; but if we were to hate everything coarse or common, 
we should find plenty to hate. Besides, though he does his 
kindness in an unpleasant way, think how very, very kind he 
has been to Ascott.-’^ 

‘‘ Johanna, I think you would find a good word for the dehl 
himself, as we used to say,^^ cried Hilary, laughing. “ Well, 
Selina, and what is your opinion of our stout friend 

Miss Selina, bridling a little, declared that she did not see 
so much to complain of in Mr. Ascott. He was not educated 
certainly, but he was a most respectable person. And his 
calling upon thepi so soon was most civil and attentive. She 
thought, considering his present position, they should forget — 
indeed, as Christians they were bound to forget — that he was 
once their grocer^s boy, and go to dine with him next Sunday. 

For my part, I shall go, though it is Sunday. I consider 
it quite a religious duty — my duty toward my neighbor. 

Which is to love him as yourself. I am sure, Selina, I 
have no objection. It would be a grand romantic wind-up to 
the story which Stowbury used to tell — of how the ^prentice- 
boy stared his eyes out at the beautiful young lady; and you 
would get the advantage of ‘ my house in Russell Square,'’ ‘ my 
carriage and servants,^ and be able to elevate your whole 
family. Do, now! set your cap at Peter Ascott. 

Here Hilary, breakiijg out into one of her childish fits of ir- 
repressible laughter, was startled to see Selina^s face in one 
blaze of indignation. 

“ Hold your tongue, you silly chit, and don^t chatter about 
things you don^t Underhand. 

And she swept majestically from the room. 

“ What have I done? Why, she is really vexed. If I had 
thought she would have taken it in earnest I would never have 
said a word. Who would have thought it!^^ 

But Miss Selina^s fits of annoyance were so common that the 
sisters rarely troubled themselves long on the matter. And 
when at tea-time she came down in the best of spirits, they 
met her half way, as they always did, thankful for these brief 
calms in the family atmosphere, which never lasted too long. 

It was a somewhat heavy evening. They waited supper till 
after ten, and yet Ascott did not appear.- Miss Leaf , read the 
chapter as usual; and Elizabeth was sent to bed, but still no 
sign of the absentee. 

. ‘‘I will sit up for him. He can not be many minutes now,^^ 
said his aunt Hilary, and settled herself in the 



which one candle and no fire made as cheerless as could possi- 
bly be. 


100 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


There she waited till midnight before the young man came 
in. Perhaps he was struck with compunction by her weary 
white face — by her silent lighting of his candle,- for he made 
her a thousand apologies. 

“ ■’Pon my honor, Aunt Hilary, 111 never keep -you up so 
late again. Poor dear auntie, how tired she looks and he 
kissed her affectionately. “ But if you were a young fellow, 
and got among other young fellows, and they overpersuaded 
you."" 

“ You should learn to say Ho."" 

‘‘ Ah!"" — ^with a sigh — so T -ought, if I were as good as my 
Aunt Hilary."" 


CHAPTEE XII. 

Months slipped by; the trees in Burton Orescent had long 
been all bare; the summer cries of itinerant vegetable dealers 
and flower-sellers had vanished out of the quiet street. The 
three sisters almost missed them, sitting in that one dull parlor 
from morning till night, in the intense solitude of people who, 
having neither heart nor money to spend in gayeties, live for- 
lorn in London lodgings, and knowing nobody, have nobody to 
visit, nobody to visit them — 

Except Mr. Ascott, who still called, and occasionally stayed 
to tea. The hospitalities, however, were all on their side. 
The first entertainment — to which Sehna insisted upon going, 
and Johanna thought Hilary and Ascott had better go too — 
was splendid enough, but they were the only ladies present; 
and though Mr.' Ascott did the honors with great magnificence, 
putting Miss Selina at the head of his table, where she looked 
exceedingly well, still the sister agreed it was better that all 
further, invitations to Eussell Square should be declined. Miss 
Selina herself said it would be more dignified and decorous. 

Other visitors they had none. ^Ascott never offered to bring 
any of his friends, and gradually they saw very httle of him. 
He was frequently out, especially at meal-times, so that his 
aunts gave up the struggle to make the humble dinners better 
and more to his liking, and would even have hesitated to take 
the money, which he was understood to pay for liis board, had 
he offered it, which he did not. Yet still, whenever he did 
happen to remain with them a day or an evening, he was good 
and affectionate, and always entertained them with descriptions 
of all lie would do as soon as he got into practice. 

Meantime they kept house as economically as possible upon 


MISTRESS AMD MAlb. 101 

the little ready money they had, hoping that more would come 
in — that Hilary would get pupils. 

.But Hilary never did. To anybody who knows London this 
will not be surprising. The wonder was in the Misses Leaf 
being so simple as to imagine that a young country lady, set- 
tling in lodgings in an obscure metropolitan street, without 
friends or introduction, could ever expect such a thing. 
Nothing but her own daring, and the irrepressible well-spring 
of hope that was in her healthy youth, could have sustained 
her in what, ten years after, would have appeared to her, as it 
certainly was, downright insanity. But Heaven takes care of 
the mad, the righteously and unselfishly mad, and Heaven 
took care of poor Hilary. 

The hundred labors she went through — ^weariness of body 
and travail of soul, the risks she ran, the pitfalls she escaped 
— what need to record here? Many have recorded the like, 
many more have known them, and acknowledged that when 
such liistories are reproduced in books how utterly imagination 
fades before reality. Hilary never looked back upon that time 
herself without a shuddering wonder how she could have dared 
all and gone through all. Possibly she never could but for the 
sweet old face, growing older yet sweeter every day, which 
smiled upon her the minute she opened the door of that dull 
parlor, and made even No 15 look hke home. 

When she told, sometimes gayly, sometimes with burning, 
bursting tears, the tale of her day^s efforts and day^s failures, 
it was always ‘comfort to feel Johanna^s hand on her hair, 
Johanna-’s voice whispering over her, “ Never mind, my child, 
all will come right in time. All happens for good.'’"’ 

And the face, withered and worn, yet calm as a summer sea, 
full of the ‘‘peace which passeth all understanding,^-’ was a 
living comment on the truth of these words. 

Another comfort Hilary had — Elizabeth. During her long 
days of absence, wandering from one end of London to the other, 
after advertisements that she had answered, or governess insti- 
tutions that she had applied to, the domestic affairs fell almost 
entirely into the hands of Elizabeth. It was she who bought 
in, and kept a jealous eye, not uimeeded, over provisions; she 
who cooked and waited, and sometimes even put a helping 
hand, coarse, but willing, into the family sewing and mencling. 
This had not become so vital a necessity that it was fortunate 
Miss Leaf had no other occupation, and Miss Selina no other 
entertainment, than stitch, stitch, stitch, at the ever-begin- 
ning, never-ending wardrobe wants which assail decent poverty 
everywhere, especially in London. 


102 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


Clothes seem to wear out frightfully fast/^ said Hilary 
one day, when she was putting on her oldest gown, to suit a 
damp, foggy day, when the streets were slippery with the mud 
of settled rain. 

“ I saw such beautiful merino dresses in a shop in Southamp- 
ton Eow,^^ insinuated Elizabeth; but her mistress shook her 
head. 

Ho, no; my old black silk will do capitally, and I can 
easily put on two shawls. Nobody knows me; and people may 
wear what they like in London. Don^t look so grave, Eliza- 
beth. What does it signify if I can but keep myself warm? 
How run away. 

Elizabeth obeyed, but shortly reappeared with a bundle — a 
large, old-fashioned thick shawl. 

“ Mother gave it me; her mistress gave it her; but weVe 
never worn it, and never shall. If only you didn4 niind put- 
ting it on, just this once~this terrible soaking dayl^"* 

The scarlet face, the entreating tones, there was no resisting 
'them. One natural pang Hilary felt — that in her sharp pov- 
erty she had fallen so low as to be indebted to her servant, and 
then she too blushed, less for shame at accepting the kindness 
than for her own pride that could not at once receive it as 
such. 

‘‘ Thank you, Elizabeth, she said, gravely and gently, and 
let herself be wrapped in the thick shaVl. Its gorgeous reds 
and yellows would, she knew, make her noticeable, even though 
“people might wear anything in London. Still, she put it 
on with a good grace; and all through her peregrinations that 
day it warmed, not only her shoulders, but her heart. 

Coming home, she paused wistfully before a glittering shoe- 
shop— her poor little feet were so. soaked and cold. Could she 
possibly afford a new pair of boots? It was not a matter of 
vanity— she had passed that. She did not care now how ugly 
and shabby looked the “ wee feet that had once been praised; 
but she felt it might be a matter of health and prudence. Sup- 
pose she caught cold— fell ill— died— died, leaving Johanna to 
struggle alone— died before Eobert Lyon came home. Both 
thoughts struck sharp. She was too young still, or had not 
suffered enough, calmly to think of death and dying. 

“ It will do no harm to inquire the price. I might stop it 
out in omnibuses.’’^ 

For this was the way every new article of dress had to be 
procured— “ stopping it out of something else. 

After trying^ several pairs— with a fierce, bitter^ blush at a 
small hole which the day's walking had worn in her well- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


103 


darned stockings, and wMcli she was sure the shopman saw, as 
well as an old lady who sat opposite — ^Hilary bought the stout- 
est and plainest of boots. The bill overstepped her purse by 
sixpence, but she promised that sum on delivery and paid the 
rest. She had got into a nervous horror of letting any account 
stand over for a single day. 

Look tenderly, reader, on this picture of struggles so small, 
of sufferings so uninteresting and mean. I paint it not because 
it is original, but because it is so awfully true. Thousands of 
women, well born, well reared, know it to be true — burned 
into them by the cruel conflict of their youth; happy they if it 
ended in their youth, while mind and body had still enough 
vitality and elasticity to endure! I paint it because it accounts 
for the accusation sometimes’ made — especially by men — that 
women are naturally “ stingy. Possibly so; but in many in- 
stances may it not have been this petty struggle with petty 
wants, this pitiful calculating of penny against penny, how 
best to save here and spend there, which narrows a woman’s 
nature in spite of herself? It sometimes takes years of com- 
parative ease and freedom from pecuniary cares to counteract 
the grinding, lowering effects of a youth of poverty. 

And I paint this picture, too, literally, and not on its pict- 
uresque side — if, indeed, poverty has a picturesque side — ^in 
order to show another side which it really has — ^high, heroic, 
made up of dauntless endurance, self-sacrifice, and self-control. 
Also to indicate that blessing which narrow circumstances alone 
bestow, the. habit of looking more to the realities than to the 
show of things, and of finding pleasure in enjoyment mental 
rather than sensuous, inward rather than external. When 
people can truly recognize this they cease either to be afraid or 
ashamed of poverty. 

Hilary was not ashamed — not even now, when hers smote 
sharper and harder than it had ever done at Stowbury. Sher^ 
felt it a sore thing enough; but it never humiliated nor angered 
her. Either she was too proud or not proud enough; but her 
low estate always seemed to her too simply external a thing to 
affect her relations with the world outside. She never thought 
of beiug annoyed with the shop-keeper, who, though he trusted 
her with the sixpence, carefully took down her name and ad- 
dress; stiU less to suspecting the old lady opposite, who sat and 
listened to the transaction — apparently a well-to-do customer, 
clad in a rich black silk and handsome sable furs — of looking 
down upon her and despising her. She herself never despised 
anybody except for wickedness. 

So she waited contentedly, neither thinking of herself nor of 


104 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


what others thought of her, but with her mind quietly occu- 
pied by the two thoughts, which in any brief space of rest 
always recurred, calming down all annoyances, and raising her 
above the level of petty pains — Johanna, and Eobert Lyon. 
IJnder the influence of these her tired face grew composed, 
and there was a wishful, far-away, fond look in her eyes, which 
made it not wonderful that the said old lady — apparently an 
acute old soul in her way — should watch her, as we do occa- 
sionally watch strangers in whom we have become suddenly 
interested. 

There is no accounting for these mterests, or to the events 
to which they give rise. Sometimes they are pooh-poohed as 

roiRantic,’^ “ unnatural,"’^ “ like a bit in a novel and yet 
they are facts continually occurring, especially to people of 
quick intuition, observation, and sympathy. Nay, even the 
most ordinary people have known or heard of such, resulting 
in mysterious, hf e-long loves; firm friendships; strange yet 
often wonderful happy marriages; sudden revolutions of fort- 
une and destiny: things utterly unaccountable for except by 
the belief in the inscrutable Providence which 

“ Shapes our ends, 

Kough-hew them as we will.” 

When Hilary left the shop she was startled by a voice at her 
elbow. 

“ I beg your pardon, but if your way lies up Southampton 
Kow, would you object to give an old woman a share of that 
capital umbrella of yom's?^'’ 

‘‘With pleasure, Hilary answered, though the oddness of 
the request amused her. And it was granted really with pleas- 
ure, for the old lady spoke with those “ accents of the mount- 
ain tongue which this foolish Hilary never recognized with- 
out a thrill at the heart. 

“ May be you think an old woman ought to take a cab, and 
not be intruding upon strangers; but I am hale and. hearty, 
and, being only a street ^s length from my own door, I dislike 
to waste unnecessary shillings. 

“ Certainly,^" acquiesced Hilary, with a half sigh: shillings 
were only too precious to her. 

“ I saw you in the boot-shop, and you seemed the sort of 
young lady who .would do a kindness to an pld lady like me, so 
I said to myself, ‘ Ifll ask her.'’ 

“lam glad you did."" Poor girl! she felt unconsciously 
pleased at finding herself still able to show a kindness to any- 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


105 

They walked on and on — ^it was certainly a long street^s 
length — to the stranger^ s door, and it took Hilary a good way 
round from hers; but she said nothing of this/ concluding, of 
course, that her companion was unaware of where she lived — 
in which she was mistaken. They stopped at last before a re- 
spectable house near Brunswick Square, bearing a brass plate, 
with the words ‘‘ Miss Balquidder.^^ 

“ That is my name, and very much obliged to you, my dear. 
How it rains! , Ye'^re just droukit.-’^ 

Hilary smiled and shook her damp shawl. ‘‘ I shall take no 
harm. I am used to .going out in all weathers. 

“Are you a governess?^"’ The question was so direct and 
kindly that it hardly seemed an impertinence. 

“ Yes; but I have no pupils, and fear I shall never get anv. 

“WhynotP^ r , 

“ I suppose, because I know nobody here. It seems so very 
hard to get teaching in London. But I beg your pardon. 

“I beg yours, said Miss Balquidder — ^not without a certain 
dignity — “for asking questions of a stranger. . But I was once 
a stranger here myself, and had a ‘ sair fecht,^ as we say in 
Scotland, before I could earn my daily bread. Though I 
wasnT a governess, still I know pretty well what the sort of 
life is, and if I had daughters who must work for their bread, 
the one thing I would urge upon them should be — ‘ Never be- 
come a governess. ^ 

“ Indeed. For what reason?” 

“ ITl not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your wet 
clothes on; but as I said, if you will do me the favor ^o call— 

“ Thank you!'’^ said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in 
London caution to dread making a new acquaintance. Besides, 
she liked the rough-hewn, good-natured face, and the Scotch 
accent was sweet to her ear. 

Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling her 
sisters the engagement she had made. Selina was extremely 
shocked, and considered it quite necessary that the London 
Directory — the nearest clergyman — or perhaps Mr. Ascott, 
who, living in the parish, must know — should be consulted as 
to Miss Bmquidder^s respectabihty. 

“ She has much more reason to question ours,” recollected 
Hilary, with some amusement, “ for I never told her my name 
or address. She does not know a single thing about me.-’f 

Which fact, arguing the matter energetically two days after, 
the young lady might not have been so sure of, could she have 
penetrated the ceiling overhead. In truth. Miss Balquidder, a 
prudent person, who never did things by halves, and, like most 


106 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


truly generous people, was cautious even in her extremest fits, 
of generosity, at that very moment was sitting in Mrs. Joneses 
first floor, deliberately discovering everything possible to be 
learned about the Leaf family. 

Nevertheless, owing to Selina'^s indignant pertinacity, 
Hilary^’s own hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which rose 
up and faded like the rest, the possible acquaintance lay 
dormant for two or three weeks; till, alas! the fabulous wolf 
actually came to the door; and the sisters, after paying their 
week^s rent, looked aghast at one another, not knowing where 
in the wide world the next* week^s rent was to come from. 

Thank God, we don^t owe anything — not a penny gasped 
Hilary. 

No; there is comfort in that,^^ said Johanna. And the 
expression of her folded hands and upward face was not de- 
spairing, even though that of the poor widow, when her barrel 
of meal was gone, and her cruse of oil spent, would hardly 
have been sadder. 

“ I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody-— 
surely God will help us. 

“ I know He will, my child. 

And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one another, 
cried a little, and then sat down to consider what was to be 
done. 

Ascott must be told how things were with them. Hitherto 
they had not troubled him much with their affairs; indeed, he 
1 home. And, after some private consultation, 

both Johanna and Hilary decided that it was wisest to let the 
lad come and go as he liked, not attempting — as he once in- 
mgnantly expressed it — to tie him to their apron-strings 
For mstmctively these maiden ladies felt that, with mar, 



It was touch in p- to seo thp.ir Affnrt.a -nrlia-n 



So, nresumiup- immi hov i,,* , 



MISTKESS AND maid. 


107 

‘‘ Aacott, how are your business affairs progressing? When 
do you think you will be able to* get into practice 

‘‘ Oh, presen%. There^s no hurry. 

I am not, so sure of that. Do you know, my dear boy 
— and she opened her purse, which contained a few shillings — 
‘‘ that this is all the money we have in the world 

‘ ‘ Nonsense, said Ascott, laughing. ‘‘ I beg your pardon> 
he added, seeing it was with her no laughing matter; but I 
am so accustomed to be hard up that I don^t seem to care. It 
always comes right somehow — at least with me. 

“How?^" 

‘‘ Oh, I don^t exactly know; but it does. Don^t fret. Aunt 
Hilary. 1^11 lend you a pound or two. 

She drew back. These poor, proud, fojid women, who, if 
their boy, instead of a fine gentleman, had been a helpless in- 
valid, would have tended him, worked for him, nay begged for 
him — cheerfully, oh! how cheerfully; wanting nothing in the 
whole world but his love — ^they could not ask bim for his 
money. Even now, offered thus, Hilary felt as if to take it 
would be intolerable. 

Still the thing must be done. 

“ I wish, Ascott and she nerved herself to say* what 
somebody ought to say to him — I wish you would not lend, 
but pay us the pound a week you said you could so easily 
spare.^^ 

‘‘ To be sure I will. What a thoughtless fellow I have been ! 
But — but — fancied you would have asked me if you wanted 
it. Never miud, you"'!! get it all* in a lump. Let me see — how 
much will it come to? You are the best head going for 
arithmetic. Aunt Hilary. Do reckon it all up!^^ 

She did so, and the sum-total made Ascott open his eyes 
wide. 

‘‘ Upon my soul I had no idea it was so much. I^m very 
sorry, but I seem fairly cleaned out this quarter — only a few 
sovereigns left to keep the mill going. You shall have them, 
or half of them, and ITl owe you the rest. Here!^^ 

He emptied on the table, without countiog, four or five 
2 ioimds. Hilary took two, asking him gravely if he was sure 
he could spare so much. She did not wish to mconvenience 
him.^^ ■ 

‘‘ Oh; not at all; and I wouldnT mind if* it did; you have 
been good aunts to me. . 

He kissed her, with a sudden fit of compunction, and bade 
her good-night, looking as if he did not care to be bothered 
any more. 


108 


MISTRESS Ain> MAID. 


Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless about him than if 
he had slammed the doc«: in* her face, or scolded her like a 
trooper. Had he met her seriousness in the stme spirit, even 
though it had been a sullen or angry spirit — and little as she 
said he must have felt— she wished him to feel — that his aunts 
were displeased with him; but that utterly unimpressible light- 
heartedness of his — there was no doing anything with it. There 
was, so to speak, ‘‘,no catching hold of Ascott. He meant 
no harm. She repeated over and over again that the lad meant 
no harm. He had no evil ways; was always pleasant, good- 
natured, and affectionate, in his own careless fashion, but was 
no more to be relied on than a straw that every wind blows 
hither and thither, or, to use a common simile, a butterfly that 
never sees anything further than the nearest flower. His was, 
in short, the pleasure-loving temperament, not positively sin- 
ful or sensual, but still holding the pleasure as the greatest 
good; and regarding wha^ deeper natures call duty,^^ and 
find therein their stronghold and consolation, as a mere bug- 
bear, or a sentimental theory, or an impossible folly. 

Poor lad! and he had the world to fight with; how would it 
use him? Even if no heavy sorrows for himself or others smote 
him, his. handsome face would have to grow old, his strong 
frame to meet sickness — death. How would he do it? That 
is the thought which always recurs. What is the end of such 
men as these? Alas! the answer would come from hospital 
wards, alms-houses and work-houses, debtors’ prisons and 
lunatic asylums. 

To apprehensions like this— except the last, happily it was 
as yet too far off — Hilary had been slowly and sadly arriving 
about Ascott for weeks past; and her conversation with him 
to-night seemed to make them darken down upon her with 
added gloom. As she went upstairs she set her lips together 
hard. 

“I see there is nobody to do anything except me. But I 
must not tell Johanna. 

She lay long awake, planning every conceivable scheme for 
saving money, till at length, her wits sharpened by the despera- 
tion of the circumstances, there flashed upon her an idea that 
came out of a talk she had had with Elizabeth that morning. 
True, it was a perfectly new and untried chance — and a mere 
chance; still it was right to overlook nothing. She would not 
have ventured to tell Selina of - it for the world, and even to 
Johanna she only said— finding her as wakeful as herself— said 
it in a careless manner, as if it had relation- to nothing, and she 
expected nothing from it — 


MISTRESS AlTD MAID. 


109 


‘‘ I .think, as I have nothing else to do, I will go and see Miss 
Balquidder to-morrow morning. 


CHAPTER XIIL 

Miss Balquidder ^s house was a handsome one, handsomely 
furnished, and a neat little maid-servant showed Hilary at once 
into the dining-parlor, where the mistress sat before a busi- 
ness-like writing-table covei-ed with letters, papers, etc., all 
arranged with that careful order in disorder which indicates, 
even in the smallest things, the possession of an accurate, 
methodical mind, than which there are few greater possessions 
either to its owner or to the world at large. 

Miss Balquidder was not a personable woman; she had never 
been so even in youth; and age had told its tale upon those 
large, strong . features — ‘‘thoroughly Scotch features^'’ — they, 
would have been called by those who think all Scotchwomen 
are necessarily big, raw-boned, and ugly, and have never seen 
that wonderfully noble beauty — not prettiness, but actual 
beauty in its highest physical as well as spiritual development 
— which is not seldom found across the Tweed. 

But, while there was nothing lovely, there was nothing un- 
pleasant or uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large figure, 
in its plain black silk dress; her neat white cap, from under 
which peeped the little round curls of flaxen hair, neither gray 
nor snowy, but real “lint-white locks still; and her good- 
humored, motherly look — motherly rather than old-maidish — 
gave an impression which may be best described by the word 
“comfortable.-’^ She was a “comfortable^^ woman. She 
had that quality — too rare, alas! in all people, and rarest in 
women going solitary down the hill of life — of being able, out 
of the deep content of her own nature, to make other people 
the same. 

Hilary was cheered in spite of herself; it always conveys 
hope to the young, when in sore trouble, if they see the old 
looking happy. 

“ Welcome, my dear!- I was afraid you had forgotten your 
promise. 

“ Oh, no,^" said Hilary, responding heartily to the hearty 
clasp of a hand large as a man^s, but soft as a woman^s. 

“ Why did you not come sooner?” 

More than one possible excuse flashed through Hilary's mind, 
but she was too honest to give it. She gave none at all. Nor 
did she like to leave the impression that this was merely a visit. 


110 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


when she knew she had only come from secondary and per- 
sonal motives. 

“ May I tell yon why I came to-day? Because I want ad- 
vice and help^ and I think you can give it, from something I 
heard about you yesterday. 

‘‘ Indeed! From whom?^^ 

“ In rather a roundabout way; from Mrs. Jones, who told 
our maid-servant. ” 

‘‘ The same girl I met on the staircase at your house? I 
beg your pardon, but I know where you live. Miss Leaf; your 
landlady happens to be an acquaintance of mine. 

So she said; and she told our Elizabeth that you were a 
rich and benevolent woman, who took a great interest in help- 
ing other women; not in money — blushing scarlet at the 
idea — I donT mean that, but in procuring them work. I 
want work — oh! so terribly. If you only knew — 

Sit down, my dear — for Hilary was trembling much, her 
voice breaking, and her eyes filling in spite of all her self-com- 
mand. 

Miss Balquidder— who seemed accustomed to wait upon her- 
self — went but of the room, and returned with cake and glasses; 
then she took the wine from the sideboard, .poured some out 
for herself and Hilary, and began to talk. 

It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I am a great friend to 
regular eating and drinking. I never let anything interfere 
with my own meals, or other folks" either, if I can help it. I 
would as soon expect that fire to keep itself up without coals, 
as my mind to go on working if, I don"t look after my body. 
You understand? You seem to have good health, Miss Leaf. 
I hope you are a prudent girl, and take care of it. "" 

“I think I do " — and Hilary smiled. “ At any rate, my 
sister does for me, and also Elizabeth. "" 

“Ah! I liked the look of that girl. If families did but 
know that the most useful patent of respectability they can 
carry about with them is their maid-servant! That is how I 
always judge my new acquaintances."" 

“ There"s reason in it too,"" said Hilary, amused and drawn 
out of herself by the frank manner and the cordial vome — I 
use the adjective advisedly: none the less sweet because its 
good terse English had a decided Scotch accent, with here and 
there a Scotch word. Also there was about Miss Balquidder a 
certain dry humor essentially Scotch— neither Irish “ wit "" nor 
English “ fun,""' but Scotch humor; a little ponderous, per- 
haps, yet sparkling; like the sparkles from a large lump of 
coal, red-warm at the heart, and capable of warming a whole 


Ill 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 

household, as many a time it had warmed the little household 
of Stowbury, for Robert Lyon had it in perfection. Like a 
waft as from old times, it made Hilary at once feel at home 
with Miss Balquidder. - 

Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen something in this 
girBs patient, heroic, forlorn youth which reminded her of her 
own. Unreasoning as these sudden attractions appear, there 
is often a hidden something beneath which in reality makes 
them both natural and probable,, as was the case here. In half 
an hour these two women were sitting talking like old friends, 
and Hilary had explained her present position, needs and de- 
sires. They ended in tlie one cry — ^familiar to how many 
thousands more of helpless young women — I want work!^^ 
Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfully. Hot that it was a 
new story — alas! she heard it every day; but there was some- 
thing new in the telling of it; such extreme directness and 
simplicity, such utter want of either false pride or false shame. 
Ho asking of favors, and yet no shrinking from^ well-meant 
kindness; the poor woman speaking freely to the rich one, 
recognizing the common womanhood of both, and never sup- 
posing for an instant that mere money or position could make 
any difference between them. 

The story ended, both turned, as was the character of both, 
to ,the practical application of it— what it was exactly that 
Hilary needed, and what Miss Balquidder could supply. 

The latter said, after a turn or two up and down the room 
with her hands behind her — the only masculine trick she had— - 
“ My dear, before going further, I ought to’ tell you one 
thing — I am not a lady. 

Hilary looked at her in no little bewilderment. 

“ That is,^^ exclaimed Miss Balquidder, laughing, “not an 
educated gentlewoman like you. I made my money myself — 
in trade. I kept an outfitter^’s shop. 

“You must have kept it uncommonly well,^^ was the in- 
voluntary reply, which, in its extreme honesty and naivete, 
was perhaps the best thing that Hilary could have said. 

“Well, perhaps I did, and Miss Balquidder laughed her 
hearty laugh, betraying one of her few weaknesses — a con- 
sciousness of her own capabilities as a woman of business, and 
a pleasure at her own deserved success. 

“ Therefore, you see, I can not help you as a governess. 
Perhaps I would not if I could, for, so far as I see, a good 
clearance of one half the governesses into honest trades would 
be for their own benefit, and greatly to the benefit of the other 
lialf. But that's not my aJffair. I only meddle with things I 


112 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


understand. Miss Leaf, would you be ashamed of keeping a 
shop.^^^ 

It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess that this point-blank 
question startled her. Her bringing up had been strictly 
among the professional class; and in the provinces sharper 
than even in London is drawn the line between the richest 
tradesman who keeps a shop/^ and the poorest lawyer, doc- 
tor, or clergyman who ever starved in decent gentility. It had 
been often a struggle for Hilary Leaf^s girlish pride to have to 
teach ABC to little boys and girls whose parents stood behind 
counters; but as she drew older she grew wiser, and intercourse 
with Eobert Lyon had taught her much. She never forgot one 
day, when Selina asked Mm something about Ms grandfather 
or great-grandfather, and he answered quickly, smiling, 
“Well, I suppose I had one, but I really never heard. 
Nevertheless, it takes long to conquer entirely the class preju- 
dices of years, nay, more, of generations. In spite of her will, 
Hilary felt herself wmce, and the color rush aU over her face, 
at Miss Balqmdder^s question. 

“ Take time to answer, and speak out, my dear. Don/t be 
afraid. You^ll not offend me.^' 

The kindly, cheerful tone made Hilary recover her balance 
immediately. 

“ I never thought of it before; the possibility of such a tiling 
did not occur to me; but I hope I should not be ashamed of 
any honest work for which I was competent. Only — to serve 
in a shop — ^to wait upon strangers — 1 am so horribly shy of 
strangers. And again the sensitive color rushed in a perfect 
tide over cheeks and forehead. 

Miss Balquidder looked, half amused, compassionately at 
her. 

“ No, my dear, you would not make a good shop- woman — 
at least there are many who are better fitted for it than you; 
and it is my maxim that people should try to find out, and to 
do, only that wMch they are best fitted for. If they did we 
might not have so many cases of proud despair and ambitious 
failure m the world. It looks very grand and interestmg 
sometimes to try and do what you canT do, and then tear your 
hair, and think the world has ill used you — very grand, but 
very silly; when all the wMle, perhaps, there is sometMng else 
you can do thoroughly well, and the world will be exceedingly 
obliged to you for doing it, and no^ doing the other tMiig. As 
doubtless the world was to me, when, instead of being a 
mediocre musician, as I once wished to be — it^s true, my dear 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


113 


— I took to keeping one of the best ladies^ outfitting ware- 
houses in London/^ 

While she talked her companion had quite recovered herself, 
and Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, what I will tell 
more briefly, if less graphically, than the good Scotch woman, 
who, like all who have had a hard struggle in their youth, 
liked a little to dilate upon it in easy old age. 

Hard as it was, however, it had ended early, for at fifty she 
found herself a woman of independent property, without kith 
or kin, still active, energetic, and capable of enjoying life. 
She applied her mind to find out what she could best do with 
herself and her money. 

I might have bought a landed estate to be inherited by — 
nobody; or a house in Belgravia, and an opera-box, to be 
shared by — nobody. We all have our pet luxuries;, none of 
these were exactly mine. 

‘‘ Ho, assented Hilary, somewhat abstractedly. She was 
thinking — if she could make a fortune, and — and give it away! 
— if, by any means, any honorable, upright heart could be 
made to understand that it did not signify, in reality, which 
side the money came from; that it sometimes showed deeper, 
the very deepest attachment, when a proud, poor man had 
self-respect and courage enough to say to a woman, I love 
you, and I will marry you; I am not such a ^coward as to be 
afraid of your gold. 

But oh! what a ridiculous dream!: — and she sat there, the 
penniless Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich 
lady, whose life seemed so easy. For the moment, perhaps, 
her own appeared hard. But she had hope, and she was young. 
She knew nothing of the years and years that had had to b^e 
lived through before those kind eyes looked as clear and 
cloudless as now; before the voice 'had gained the sweet even- 
ness of tone which she liked to hsten to, and felt that it made 
her (piet and ‘‘ good,^^ almost like Johanna^s. 

You see, my dear,^^ said Miss Balquidder, when one has 
no duties, one must just make them; when we have nobody to 
care for us, we must take to caring for everybody. I suppose. ^ ' 
— ^here a slight pause indicated that this life, like all women^s 
lives, had had its tale, now long, long told — I suppose I was 
not meant to be a wife, but I am quite certain I was meant to 
be a mother. And — ^with her peculiar, bright, humorous 
look — you^d be astonished. Miss Leaf, if you knew what lots 
of ‘ children ^ I have in all parts of the world. 

Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, that finding, from 
her own experience, how great was the number, and how sore 


114 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


the trial, of young women who nowadays are obliged to work 
— obliged to forget that there is such a thing as the blessed 
privilege of being worked for — she had set herself, in her small 
way, to try and help them. Her pet project was to induce 
educated women to quit the genteel starvation of governess- 
ships for some good trade, thereby bringing higher intelligence 
into a class which needed, not the elevation of the work itself, 
which was comparatively easily and refined, but of the workers. 
She had therefore invested sum after sum of her capital in 
setting up various small shops in the environs of London, in 
her own former line, and others — stationers, lace-shops, etc. — 
trades which could be well carried on by women. Into the 
management of these she put as many young girls as she could 
find really fitted for it, or willing to learn, paying them regular 
salaries, large or small, according to their deserts. 

‘‘ Fair work, fair pay; not one penny more or less; I never 
doit; it would not be honest. I overlook each business my- 
self, and it is carried on in my name. Sometimes it brings me 
in a little profit, sometimes not. Of course, she added, 
smiling, “ I would rather have profits than losses; still, I bal- 
ance one against the other, and it leaves me generally a small 
interest for my money — two or three per cent. , which is all I 
care about. Thus, you see, I and my young people make a 
fair bargain on both sides; it^s no charity. I donT believe in 
charity.'’^ 

“ Ho,'^ said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise- She was yet 
young enough, yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the 
deliciousness of work — honest work for honest pay. I think 
I could do it,^^ she added. ‘‘ I think, with a little practice, I 
really could keep a shop. ” 

“ At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more diffi- 
cult to get done, and well done, for it requires a far higher 
class of women than generally apply: you could keep the 
accounts of a shop; you should be the head, and it would be 
easy to find the hands. Let me see; there is a young lady, she 
has managed my stationer^s business at Kensington these two 
years, and now she is going to be married. Are you good at 
figures? Do you understand book-keeping?’^ 

And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and one 
who was evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and com- 
mand, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore 
arithmetical catechism, from which she came off with flying 
colors. 

1 only wish there were more like you. I wish there were 
more young ladies brought up like — 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


115 


Like boys!^^ said Hilary, laughing, for I always used to 
say that was my case. 

‘‘Ho, I never desire to see young women made into men.’^ 
And Miss Balquidder seemed a little scandalized. “ But I do 
wish girls were taught fewer accomplishments, and more read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic; were made as accurate, orderly, 
and able to help themselves as boys are. But to business. 
Will you take the management of my stationer ^s shop?^^ 

Hilary’s breath came hard. and fast. Much as she had 
longed for work, to get this sort of work — to keep a stationer’s 
shop! What would her sisters say? what would 7^6 say? But 
she dared not think of that just, now. 

“ How much should I be able to earn, do you think?” 

Miss Balquidder considered a moment, and then said, rather 
shortly, for it was not exactly acting on her own principles; 
she knew the pay was above the work. “ I will " give you a 
hundred a year. ” 

A hundred a year! actually certain, and over and above any 
other income. It seemed a fortune to poor Hilary. 

“Will you give me a day or two to think about it and con- 
sult my sisters?” 

She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder could see how agi- 
tated she was; how she evidently struggled with many feelmgs 
that would be Best struggled with alone. The good old lady 
rose. 

• “ Take your own time, my dear; I will keep the situation 
open for you for one week from this date. And now I must 
send you away, for I have a great deal to do. 

They parted, quite like friends; and Hilary went out, walk- 
ing quickly, feeling neither the wind nor the rain.- Yet when 
she reached Ha 15 she could not bring herself to enter, but 

* took another turn or two round the Orescent, trying to be quite 
sure of her own mind before she opened the matter to her sis- 
ters. And there was one little battle to be fought which the 
sisters did not know. 

It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him in 
any open way, and he had no external right over her life or her 
actions, that she should go back and back to the question, 
“ What would Robert Lyon say?” 

He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this had 
seemed to vex and annoy him, but it must be done; and when 
a thing was inevitable, it was not Mr. Lyon’s way to say much 
about it. But being a governess was an accredited and cus- 
tomary mode of a young lady’s earning her livelihood. This 
was different. If he should think it too public, too unf eminine ; 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


116 

he had such a horror of a woman's being anything but a wom- 
an, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; 
doing anything, however painfid, that she was obliged to do, 
but never out of choice or bravado, o-r the excitement of step- 
ping out of her own sphere into man's. Would Robert Lyon 
think less of her, Hilary, because she had to learn to take care 
of herself, to protect herself, and to act in so many ways for 
herself, contrary to the natural and right order of things? 
That old order— God forbid it should ever change !— which 
ordained that the women should be “ keepers at home;" hap- 
py rulers of that happy little world, which seemed as far off as 
the next world from this poor Hilary. 

“What if he should look down upon me? What if he 
should return and find me different from what he expected?" 
And bitter tears burned in her eyes as she walked rapidly and 
passionately along the deserted street. Then a revulsion came. 

No; love is worth nothing that is not worth everything, and 
to be trusted through everything. If he could forget me — 
could love any one better than me — me myself, no matter what 
I ^yas — ugly or pretty, old or young, rich or poor — I would not 
care for his love. It would not be worth my having; I'd let 
it go. Robert, though it broke my heart, I'd let you go." 

Her eyes flashed; her poor little hand clinched itself under 
her shawl; and then, as, a half reproach, she heard in fancy the 
steady loving voice — ^which could have calmed her wildest 
paroxysm of passion and pain — “ You must trust me, Hilary." 

Yes, he was a man to be trusted. No doubt very much like 
other men, and by no means such a hero to the world at large 
as this fond girl made him out to be; but Robert Lyon had, 

. with all people, and under all circumstances, the character of 
rehableness. He had also — you might read it, in his face — a 
quality equally rare, faithfulness. Not merely sincerity, but 
faithfulness; the power of conceiving one clear purpose or one 
strong love — in unity is strength — and of not only keeping 
true to it at the time, but of holding fast to it with a single- 
minded persistency that never even takes in the idea of volun- 
tary change as long as persistency is right or possible. 

“Robert, Robert!" sobbed this forlorn girl, as if slowly 
waking up to a sense of her foiiornness, and of the almost uni- 
versal fickleness — not actual falseness, but fickleness, which 
■ prevails in the world and among mankind. “ Oh, Robert, be 
faithful! faithful to yourself— faithful to me!" 


MISTBESS AKD MAID. 


117 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Whek Miss Hilary reached home^ Elizabeth opened the 
door to her; the parlor was deserted. 

Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was away 
to see the Lord Mayor^s Show with Mr. Peter Ascott. 

With Mr. Peter Ascott!"^ Hilary was a little surprised, 
but on second thoughts she found it natural; Selina was glad 
of any amusement — to her, not only the narrowness, but the 
dullness of their poverty was inexpressibly galling. She 
will be back to dinner, I suppose?^-’ 

“ I don^t know,^^ said Elizabeth, briefly. 

Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have 
noticed something not quite right about the girl — something 
that at any other time would have aroused the direct question, 
‘‘ What is the matter, Elizabeth?'’^ For Miss Hilary did not 
consider it beneath her dignity to observe that things mi^ht 
occasionally go wrong with this solitary young woman, away 
from her friends, and exposed to all the annoyances of London 
lodgings; that many trifles might happen to worry and perplex 
her. If the mistress could not set them right, she could at, 
least give the word of kindly sympathy, as precious to a poor 
servant as to the queen on her throne. 

This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disappeared 
below stairs immediately. 

The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult ethical 
question. To-day, for the first time in her life,, she had not 
‘^told Miss Hilary everything.-’^ Two things h^ happened, 
and she could not make up her mind as to whether she ought 
to communicate them. 

How Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very tender 
one, and which, from circumstances, had been cultivated into 
a much higher sensitiveness than, alas! is common among her 
class, or, indeed, in any class. This, if an’ error, was Miss 
Hilary^s doing: it probably caused Elizabeth a few more 
miseries, and vexations, and painful shocks in the world than 
she would have had had she imbibed only the ordinary tone of 
morality, especially the morality of ordinary domestic serv- 
ants; but it was an error upon which, in summing up her life, 
the recording angel would gravely smile. 

The first trial had happened at breakfast-time. Ascott, de- 
scending earlier than his wont, had asked her, Hid any gentle- 


118 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


man, short and dirty, -with a hooked-nose, inquire for him yes- 

^^^Elmheth thought a minute, and recollected that some per- 
son answering the above not too flatteiing description had 
called, but refused to leave his name, saying he did not know 
the ladies, but was a particular friend of Mr. heat s. ^ 

Ascott laughed. ‘‘ So he is— a very particular friend; but 
mv aunts would not fancy him, and I don^t want him to come 
here. Say, if he calls, that I"m gone out of town. 

“Very well, sir. Shall you start before dinner? said 
Elizabeth, whose practical mind immediately recurred to that 
meal, and to the joint, always contrived to be hot on the days 
that Ascott dined at home. 

He seemed excessively tickled. “Bless you, you are the 
greatest innocent! Just say what I tell you, and never mind 
—hush! here^s Aunt Hilary.'" ' 

And Miss Hilary's anxious face, white with long waketul- 
ness, had put out of Elizabeth's head the answer that was 
coming; indeed, the matter slipped from her mind altogether, 
in consequence of another circumstance which gave her much 

more perplexity. . tit* o v 

During her young mistress's absence, supposmg Miss feelina 
out too, and Miss Leaf upstairs, she had come suddenly into 
the parlor without knocking. There, to her amazement, she 
saw Miss Selina and Mr. Ascott standing, in close conversation, 
over the fire. They were so engrossed that they did not notice 
her, and she shut the door again immediately. But what con- 
founded her was that she was certain, absolutely certain, Mr. 
Ascott had his arm round Miss Selma's waist! 

How that was no business of hers, and yet the faithful domes- 
tic was a good deal troubled; still more so when, by Miss 
Leaf's excessive surprise at hearing of the visitor who had come 
and gone, carrying Miss Selina away to the city, she was cer- 
tain the elder sister was completely in the dark as to anything 
going to happen in the family. 

Could it be a wedding? Could Miss Selina really love, and 
be” intending to marry, that horrid little man? For, strange 
to say, this young servant had, what many a young beauty of 
rank and fashion has not, or has lost forever — the true, pure, 
womanly creed, that loving and marrying are synonymous 
terms; that to let a man put his arni round your waist when 
you do not intend to marry hiin, or to intend to marry him for 
money or anything else when you do not really love him, are 
things quite impossible and incredible to any womanly mind. 
A creed somewhat out of date, and perhaps existing only in 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


119 


strajr nooks of the world; but, thank God ! it does exist.. Hilary 
had it, and she had taught it to Elizabeth. 

“ I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows of this? I wonder 
what she would say to it?^’’ 

And now arose the perplexing ethical question aforesaid as 
to whether Elizabeth ought to tell her. 

It was one of Miss Hilary^s doctrines— the same for the 
kitchen as the parlor, nay, preached strongest in the kitchen, 
where the mysteries of the parlor are often so cruelly exposed 
— that a secret accidentally found out should be kept as sacred 
as if actually confided; also, that the secret of an enemy should 
no more be betrayed than that of a beloved and trusting 
friend. 

Miss Selina isn^t my enemy, smiled Elizabeth, but I^m 
not qverfond of her, and so I^’d rather not tell of her, or vex 
her if I can help it. • Ahyhow, 1^11 keep it to myself for a 
bit.^^ . " 

But the secret weighed heavily upon her, and, besides, her 
honest heart felt a certain diminution of respect for Miss 
Selina. What could she see to Like in that common-looking, 
commonplace man, whom she could not have met a dozen 
times, of whose domestic life she knew nothing, and whose per- 
sonality Elizabeth, with the sharp observation often found in 
her class, probably because coarse people do not care to hide 
their coarseness from servants, had speedily set down at her 
own valuation — Neither carriage nor horses, nor nothing, 
will ever make him a gentleman ' 

He, however, sent Miss Selina home magnificently in the 
said carriage; Ascott with her, who had been picked up some- 
where in the city, and who came into his dinner without the 
slightest reference to going “ out of town.'’’ 

But in spite of her Lord Mayor’s Show, and the great atten- 
tion which she said she had received from various members 
of the Common Council of the City of London,” Miss Selina 
was, for her, meditative, and did not talk quite so much as 
usual. There was in the little parlor an uncomfortable atmos- 
phere, as if all of them had something on their minds. Hilary 
felt the ice must be broken, and if she did not do it nobody 
else would\ So she said, stealing her hand into Johanna’s, 
under shelter of the dim fire-light, 

“ Selina, I wanted to have a little family consultation. I 
have just received an offer.” 

‘‘An offer!’ repeated Miss Selina, with a visible start. 
“ Oh, I forgot; you went to see your friend. Miss Balquidder, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


120 

this morning. Did you get anything out of her? Has she any 
nephews and nieces wanting a governess?^ ^ 

She has no relations at all. But I will just tell you the 
story of my visit. 

‘‘ I hope it’s interesting/’ said Ascott, who was lying on the 
sofa, half asleep, his general habit after dinner. He woke, 
however, during his Aimt Hilary’s relation, and when she 
reached its chmax, that the offer was for her to manage a 
stationer’s shop, he hurst out, heartily laughing: 

‘‘ Well, that is a rich idea. I’ll come and buy of you. 
You’ll look so pretty standing behind a counter.”^ 

But Sehna said, angrily, “You can not even think of such a 
thing. It would be a disgrace to the family.” 

“ Ho,” said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister’s hand 
— they two had already talked the matter over, “ I can not see 
any disgrace. If our family is so poor that the women must 
earn their living as well as the men, all we have to see is that 
it should be honestly earned. What do you say, Ascott?” 

She looked earnestly at him; she wanted sorely to find out 
what he really thought. 

But Ascott took it, as he did everything, very easily. “ I 
don’t see why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. Why 
need you do anything. Aunt Hilary? Can’t we hold out a little 
longer, and live upon tick till I get into practice? Of course, 
I shall then take care of you all; I’m the head of the family. 
How horridly dark this room is!” 

He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, which con- 
sumed in five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary had 
hoped — oh, cruel, kordid economy — would have lasted half the 
evening. 

She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking 
Johanna to give her opinion. 

Johanna roused herself and spoke: 

“ Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and by 
and by, I trust, will take care of us all. But he is not able to 
do it now, and meantime w^must live.” 

“ To he sure we must, auntie.” 

“ I mean, my hoy, we must live honestly; we must not run 
into debt;” and her voice sharpened as with the relfected hor- 
ror of her young days— if, alas! there ever had been any youth 
for Henry Leaf’s eldest daughter. “ Ho, Ascott, out of debt 
out of danger. For myself ” — she laid her thin old fingers on 
his arm, and looked up at him with a pitfful mixture of reli- 
ance and hopelessness — “I would rather sees you breaking 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 131 

stones in the road than living Hke a gentleman, as you call it, 
and a swindler, as I call it, upon other people's money." 

Ascott sprung up, coloring violently. “You use strong 
language. Aunt Johanna. Never mind. I dare say you are 
right. However, it's no business of mine. Good-night, for I 
have an engagement. " 

Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join in 
the family consultation. 

“ Oh no; I hate talking over things. Settle it among your- 
selves. As I said, it isn't my business." 

“ You don't care, then, what becomes of us all? I some- 
times begin to think so. " 

Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the act of putting on 
his lilac kid gloves. “ What have I done? I may be a very 
bad fellow, but I'm not quite so bad as that, aunt Hilary." 

“ She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt Johanna, tenderly. 

He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. 
He came and kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, im- 
pulsive way, which had won him forgiveness for many a boyish 
fault. It did so now. 

“ I know I'm not half good enough to you, auntie, but I 
mean to be. I mean to work hard, and be a rich man some 
day, and then you may be sure I shall not let my aunt Hilary 
keep a shop. Now good-night, for I must meet a fellow on 
business — really business — that may turn out good for us all, I 
assure you." 

He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled good- 
natured liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made them 
say continually th^t he was “ only a boy," living a boy's life, 
as thoughtless and as free. When his handsome face disap- 
peared the three women sat down again round the fire. 

They made no comments on him whatever; they were 
women, and he was their own. But — ^passing him over as if 
he had never existed — Hilary began to explain to her sisters all 
particulars of her new scheme for maintaining the family. 
She told these details in a matter-of-fact way, as already 
arranged, and finally hoped Selina would make no more ob- 
jections. 

“ It is a thing quite impossible," said Selina, with dignity. 

“ Why impossible? I can certainly do the work, and it can 
not make me less of a lady. Besides, we had better not be 
ladies if we can not be honest ones. And, Selina, where is the 
money to come from? We have none in the house; we can 
not get any till Christmas. " 

“ Opportunities might occur. '"We have friends/^ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


123 * 

. Not one in London— except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I 
would not ask him for a farthing. You don't see, Selma, how 
horrible it would be to be helped, unless by some one dearly 
loved. I couldn't bear it! I'd rather beg— starve— almost 
steal ^ ' ' 

‘‘ Don't be violent, child." 

Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of long-smothered pain 
burst out. ‘‘ Hard enough to have to earn one's bread m a 
way one doesn't like; harder still to have to be parted from 
Johanna from Monday morning till Saturday night. But it 
must be. I'll go. It's a case between hunger, debt, and 
work; the first is unpleasant, the second impossible, the third 
is my only alternative. You must consent, Selma, for I io%U 

‘‘ Don't!" Selina spoke more gently, and not without some 
natural emotion. “ Don't disgrace me, child; for I may as 
well tell you — I neant to do so to-night — Mr. Ascott has made 
me an offer of marriage, and I— I have accepted it." 

Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the middle of the parlor at No. 
15, Its inmates — ^that is, two of them — could not have been 

more astounded. , ^ « • t -x 

No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity on 
their part. Many women would have prognosticated, planned 
the thing from the first; thought it a most excellent- match; 
seen glorious visions of the house in Russell Square, of the 
Avealth and luxury that would be the portion of “ dear Selina," 
and the general benefit that the marriage would be to the whole 
Leaf family. 

But these two were different from others. They only saw 
theii- sister Selina, a woman no longer young, and not without 
her pecuharities, going to be married to a man she knew httle 
or nothing about — a man whom they themselves had endured 
rather than liked, and for the sake of gratitude. He was try- 
ing enough merely as a chance visitor; but to look upon Mr. 
Ascott as a brother-in-law, as a husband — 

“ Oh, Selina! you can not be in earnest?" 

“ Why not? AVhy should I not be married as well as my 
neighbors?" said she, sharply. 

Nobody arguing that point, both being, indeed, too bewild- 
ered to argue at all, she continued, majestically, 

“ I' assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unexcep- 
tionable offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott's origin Avas rather hum- 
ble; but I can overlook that. In his present Avealth, and Avith 
his position and character, he Avill make the best of husbands." 

Not a word was answered; what could be ansAvered? Selina 


MISTRESS Am) MAID. 


123 


was free to marry if she liked^ and whom she liked. Perhaps, 
from her nature, it was idle to expect her to marry in any 
other way than tins; one of the thousand and one unions where 
the man desires a handsome, lady-like wife for the head of his 
establishment, and the woman wishes an elegant estabhshment 
to be mistress of; so they strike a bargain^ — possibly as good as 
most other bargains. 

Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she 
had quite decided. 

Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his 
answer this morning.^’ 

Selina certainly had not troubled anybody with her “love 
affairs. It was entirely a matter of business. 

The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. 
Henceforward there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott. 

How all was told, she talked freely of her excellent prospects. 

“ He has behaved handsomely — ^very much so. He makes 
a good settlement on me, and says how happy he will be to 
help my family, so as to enable you always to make a respect- 
able appearance. 

“ We are exceedingly obliged to him.'’^ 

“ DonT be sharp, Hilary. He means well. And he must 
feel that this marriage is a sort of — ahem! condescension on 
my part, which I never should have dreamed of twenty years 
ago."" 

Sehna sighed: could it be at the thought of that twenty years 
ago? Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman might once 
have had some fancy, some ideal man whom she expected to 
meet and marry; possibly a very different soH of man from 
Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh was but momentary; 
she plunged back again into all the arrangements of her wed- 
ding, every one of which, down to the wedding-dress, she had 
evidently decided. 

“ And therefore you see,"" she added, as if the unimportant, 
almost forgotten item of discussion had suddenly occurred to 
her, “ it"s quite impossible that my sister should keep a shop. 
I shall tell Mr. Ascott, and you will see what he says to it. "" 

But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn rtate as 
an accepted lover he seemed to care very little about, the mat- 
ter. He thought it was a good thing for everybody to be inde- 
pendent; did not see why young women — ^he begged pardon, 
young ladies — should not earn their own bread if they liked. 
He only wished that the shop were a little further off than 
Kensington, and hoped the name of Leaf would not be nut 
over the door. 


134 


MIBTEESS AND MAID, 


But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her lover 
to interfere, and prevent the scheme from being carried out. 

DonH vex yourself, my dear Selina,"'’ said he, dryly— how 
Hilary started to hear this stranger use the household name— 
“ but I can"t see that it"s my business to interfere. I marry 

you; I don’t marry your whole family."" , . , 

“ Mr. Ascott is quite right; we will end the sub3ect, said 
Johanna, with grave dignity; while Hilary sat with burning 
cheeks, thinkin g that, miserable as the family had been, it had 
never till now known real degradation. _ ^ 

But her heart was very sore that day. In the morning had 
come the letter from India, never omitted, never delayed; 
Kobert Lyon was punctual as clock-work in everything he did. 
It came, but this month it was a short and somewhat sad letter 
— hinting of failing health, uncertain prospects; full of a bitter 
longing to come home, and a dread that it would be years be- 
fore that longing was realized. 

My only consolation is,"" he wrote, for once betraying him- 
self a little, that, however hard my life out here may be, I 
bear i^ alone."" 

But that consolation was not so easy to Hilary. That they 
two should be wasting their youth apart, when just a little heap 
of yellow coins — of which men like Mr. Ascott had such pro- 
fusion — would bring them together, and, let trials be many or 
poverty hard, give them the unutterable joy of being once 
more face to face and heart to heart — oh, it was sore — sore! 

Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly 
affianced couple sat together, “ making believe "" a passion 
that did not exist, and acting out the sham com’tship, proper 
for the gentleman to pay and the lady to receive — ^when she shut 
her bedroom door, and there, sitting in the cold, read again 
and again Kobert Lyon"s letter to Johanna, so good, so honest; 
so sad, yet so bravely enduring — Hilary was comforted. She 
felt that True love, in its most unsatisfied longings, its most 
cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest agonies of hopeless separa- 
tion, is sweeter ten thousand times than the most respect- 
able "" of loveless marriages such as this. 

So, at the week"s end, Hilary went patiently to her work at 
Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her wedding. 


CHAPTER XV. 


In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately 
seemed to overlook Elizabeth Hand. 

She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


125 


put herself forward, Tiot even now, when Miss Hilary’s absence 
caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic management 
to fall chiefly upon her. She went about her duties as soberly 
and silently as she had done in her girlhood; even Miss Leaf 
could not draw her into much demonstrativeness: she was one 
of those people who never- ‘‘ come out ” till they are strongly 
needed, and then — But. it remained to be proved what this 
girl would be. 

Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious 
reticence Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she re*' 
mained as old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no 
fripperies of dress or flippancies of ihanner. Also, that she 
never complained of anything, though the discomforts of her 
lodging-house life must have been great — greater than her 
mistresses had any idea of at the time. Slowly, out of her 
rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that character of self- 
reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks, makes of some 
women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers rather 
than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems 
to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather 
than to enjoy. 

Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. “She made no 
acquaintances, and . never asked for holidays. Indeed, she did 
not seeni to care for any. Her great treat Was wlien, on a 
Sunday afternoon. Miss Hilary sometimes took her to West- 
minster Abbey or St. Paul’s, when her pleasure and gratitude 
always struck her mistress — nay, even soothed her, and won 
her from her own many anxieties. It is such a blessing to be 
able to make any other human being, even for an horn* or two, 
entirely happy. 

Except these bright Sundays^ Elizabeth’s whole time was 
spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow 
suddenly frail and old. It might be that living without her 
child six days out of the seven was a greater trial than had at 
flrst appeared to the elder sister, who until now had never 
parted with her since she was born; or it was perhaps a more 
commonplace and yet natural cause, the livmg in London 
lodgings, without even a change of air from room to room, 
and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all 
Hilary’s care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means. 

For Selina’s engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, 
she had insisted should last six months, did not lessen ex- 
penses. Old gowns were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to 
the future Mrs. Ascott of Kussell Square; and though, to do 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


136 

her justice, she spent as little as to her self-plea&ing nature was 

possible, still she spent something. 

‘‘ It’s the last; I shall never cost you any more,” shei would 
say, complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing 
interest, her trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided 
hberally'by Mr. Ascott. Sorely had this arrangement jarred 
upon the pride of the Leaf family; yet it was inevitable. But 
no personal favors would the other two sisters have accepted 
from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered them — ^whicli he did not 
— save a dress each for the marriage, and a card for the 
marriage-breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take place 
at a hotel. 

So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was Httle change 
in the dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness 
was when Miss Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. 
And in those brief glimpses, when, as was naturi, she on her 
side, and they on theirs, put on their best face, so to speak, 
each trying to hide from the other any special care, it so fell 
out that Miss Hilary never discovered a thing which, week by 
week, Elizabeth resolved to speak to her about, and yet never 
could. For it was not her own affair; it seemed like pre- 
sumptuously meddliag in the affairs of the family. Above all, 
it involved the necessity of something which looked like tale- 
bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was 
in Elizabeth — servant as she was — an instinctive chivalrous 
honor which made her especially anxious to be just to her ene- 
mies. 

Enemy, however, is a large word to use ; and yet day by day 
her feeUng grew more bitter toward the person concerned — 
namely, Mr. Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him: 
he was the sort of young man always likely to be a favorite 
with what would be termed his “ inferiors;” easy, good- 
tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good deal of trouble cer- 
tainly, but giving it so agreeably that few servants would have 
grumbled, and paying for it — as he apparently thought every- 
thing could be paid for — with a pleasant word and a handful 
of silver. 

But Elizabeth’s distaste for him had deeper roots. The 
principal one was his exceeding indifference to his aunts’ 
affairs, great and small, from the marriage, which he briefly 
designated as a ‘‘ jolly lark,” to the sharp economies which, 
.even with the addition of Miss Hilary’s salary, were still 
requisite. None of these latter did he ever seem to notice, 
except when they pressed upon himself; when he neither 
scolded nor argued, but simply went out afld avoided them. 


MISTKESS AlfD MAlt), 127 

He was now absent from home more than ever, and appar- 
ently tried as much as possible to keep the household in the 
dark as to his movements- — leaving at uncertain times, never 
saying what hour he would be back, or if he said so, never 
keeping to his word. This was the more annoying, as there were 
a number of people continually inquiring "for him, hanging 
about the house, and waiting to see him “ on business;"^ and 
some of tltese occasionally commented on the young gentleman 
in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they would 
reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to 
attend to the door herself. 

But Mrs. Jones was a wide-awake woman. She had not let 
lodgings for thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, 
and took good care to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that 
Mr. Ascott Leaf was what is euphuistically termed in diffi- 
culties.^^ 

And here one word, lest in tellmg this poor lad's story I may 
be supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was 
no crime greater than that which a large portion of society 
seems to count as none; as if, at the merest mention of the 
ugly word debt, this rabid author flew Out, and made all the 
ultra-virtuous persons whose history is here told fly out like 
turkeys after a bit of red cloth, which is a very harmless scrap 
of red cloth after all. 

Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion. 
The merchant suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who * 
by some strange blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in 
ignorance of their real circumstances, and been spending 
pounds for which there was only pence to pay; the individuals, 
men or women, who, without any laxity of principle, are such 
utter children in practice that they have to learn the value and 
use of money by hard experience, much as a child does, and 
are little better than children in all that concerns £ s. d* to the 
end of them days. 

But these are debtors by accident, not error. The deliberate 
debtor, who orders what he knows he has no means of paymg 
for; the pleasure-loving debtor, who can not renounce one 
single luxury for conscience' sake; the well-meaning, lazy 
debtor, who might make ‘^ends meet," but does not, simply 
because he will not take the trouble; upon such as . these it is 
right to have no mercy — they deserve none. 

To wliich of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged his 
story will show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point 
its own moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands. 

That a young, fellow should not enjoy his youth would be 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


128 

hard; that it should not be pleasant to him to dress well, live 
well, and spend with open hand upon himself as well as others, 
no one will question. 'No one would ever wish it otherwise. 
Many a kindly spendthrift of twenty-one makes a prudent 
paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in his twpties showed 
a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow into the most 
contemptible miser alive. There is something e^^en in the 
thoughtless liberality of youth to which one^s heart warms, 
even while one^s wisdom reproves. But what struck Elizabeth 
was that Ascott's liberalities were always toward himself, and 
himself only. • 

Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while 
others yet unpaid for were tossing in wasteful disorder about 
his room, or when she cleaned indefinite pairs of. handsome 
boots, and washed dozens of the finest cambric pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within her to remember Miss 
Hilary^s countless wants and contrivances in the matter of 
dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss Leaf^s 
frail health required— things which never once seemed to cross 
the nephew^s imagination. Of course not, it will be said; how 
could a young man be expected to trouble himself about these 
things? 

But they do, though. Answer, many a widow^s son; many 
a heedful brother of orphan sisters; many a solitary clerk liv- 
ing and paying his way upon the merest pittance; is it not 
better to think of others than one^s self? Can a man, even a 
yomig m^n, find his highest happiness in mere personal enjoy- 
ment? 

However, let me cease throwing these pebbles of preaching 
under the wheels of my story; as it moves on it will preach 
enough for itself. 

Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as 
to whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came 
to an end at last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even 
if it did look like tale-bearing, on the following Satm’day night 
Miss Hilary must know all. 

It was an anxious week, for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Hot 
seriously; and she never complained until her sister had left, 
when she returned to her bed and did not again rise. She 
would not have^Miss Hilary sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was 
away paying a ceremonious prenuptial visit to Mr.. Ascott^s 
partner's wife at Dulwich. 

‘‘ I donT want anything that you can not do for me. • You 
are becoming a first-rate nurse, Ehzabeth,^^ she said, with that 
passive, peaceful smile which almost frightened the girl; it 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


129 


seemed as if she were slipping away from this world and all its 
cares into another existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her 
anything about her nephew^s affairs was perfectly impossible. 
How thankful she was that in the quiet of the sick-room her 
mistress was kept in ignorance of the knocks and inquiries at 
the door, and especially of a certain ominous paper which had 
fallen into Mrs. Joneses hands, and informed her, as she took 
good care to inform Elizabeth, that any day ‘‘ the bailiffs ” 
might be after her young master. 

And the sooner the whole set 6f you clear out of my house 
the better; I am a decent, respectable woman, said Mrs. 
Jones, that very morning; and Elizabeth had had to beg her 
as a favor not to disturb her sick mistress, but to wait one day, 
till Miss Hilary came home. 

Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless coun- 
tenance his ten minutes^ after-breakfast chat in his aunk’s 
room, had met Elizabeth on the staircase, he had stopped to 
bid her say if anybody wanted him he was gone to Birmingham, 
and would not be home till Monday. And on Elizabeth's hesitat- 
ing, she having determined to tell no more of these involun- 
tary lies, he. had been very angry, and then stooped to entreat- 
ies, begging her to do as he asked, or it would be the ruin of 
him — which she miderstood well enough when, all the day, she 
— ^grown painfully wise, poor girl! — watched a Jewish-looking 
man hanging about the house, and noticing everybody that 
went in or out of it. 

Now, sitting at Miss Leaf^s window, she fancied she saw this 
man disappear into the gin-palace opposite, and at the same 
moment a figure darted hurriedly round the street-corner and 
into the door of No. 15. 

Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress were asleep, and then 
crept quietly out of the room, shutting the door after her. 
Listening, she heard the sound of the latch-key, and of some 
one coming stealthily upstairs. 

‘‘ Halloo! Oh, it^s'only you, Elizabeth. 

“ Shall I light your candle, sir?'^ 

But when she did the sight ^s not pleasant. Drenched 
with rain, his collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in 
some measure to act as a disguise, breathless and trembling — 
hardly anybody would have recognized in this discreditable ob- 
ject that gentlemanly young man, Mr. Ascott Leaf. 

He staggered into his room and threw himself across the bed. 

“ Do you want anything, sir?^^ said Elizabeth^ from the 
door. 


5 


130 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


No — ye^ — stay a minute. Elizabeth^ are you to be 
trusted?^^ 

“ I hope I am, sir. 

The bailiffs are after me. • IVe just dodged them. If 
they know I^’m here the gamers all up — and it will kill my 
aunt. 

Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say that 
— ;glad to see the burst of emotion with which he flung himself 
down on the pillow, mutteriug all sorts of hopeless self-accusa- 
tions. 

Come, sir, Tis no use taking on so,-’"’ said she, much as 
she would have spoken to a child, for there was something 
childish rather than ^manlike in Ascott^s distress. Neverthe- 
less, she pitied him with the unreasoning pity a kind heart 
gives to any creature who, blameworthy or not, has fallen into 
trouble. “ What do you mean to do?^^ 

“ Nothing. I^m cleaned out. And I havenT a friend in 
the world. 

He turned his face to the wall in perfect despair. 

Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judgment upon what the 
catechism would call her betters, and yet her own strong 
instinct of almost indefinite endurance turned with something 
approaching contempt from this weak, lightsome nature, 
broken by the first touch of calamity. 

“ Come, it^s no use making things worse than they are. If 
nobody knows that you are here lock your door and keep quiet. 
I’ll bring you some dinner when I bring up missis’s tea, and ' 
not even Mrs. Jones will be any the wiser.” 

“You’re a brick, Elizabeth— a regular brick!” cried the 
young fellow, brightening up at the least relief. “ That will 
be capital. Get me a good slice of beef, or ham, or something. 
And, mind you— don’t forget!— a regular stunning bottle of 
pale ale. ” 

“ Very well, sir.” 

The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, and, had he watched 
Elizabeth’s face, he might have seen there an expression not 
too flattering. But she faithfully brought him his dinner, and 
kept his secret, even though, hearing from over the staircase 
Mrs. Jones resolutely deny that Mr. Leaf had been at home 
since mourning, she felt very much as if she were conniving at 
a lie. With a painful, half -guilty consciousness, she waited 
for her mistress’s usual question, “Is my nephfew come 
home?” but fortunately it was not asked. Miss Leaf lay quiet 
and passive, and her faithful nurse settled her for the night 
with a strangely solemn feeling, as if she were leaving her to 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


131 


her last rest;, safe and at peace before the overlianging storm 
broke upon the family. 


But all shadow of this stt)rm seemed to have passed away 
from him who was its cause. .As soon as the house was still 
Ascott crept down and fell to his supper with as good an appe- 
tite as possible. He even became free and conversational. 

Don^t look so glum, Elizabeth. I shall soon weather 
through. Old Ascott will fork out; he couldn't help it. I'm 
to be his^ nephew, you know. Oh, that was a clever catch of 
Amit Selina's. If only Aunt Hilary would try another like 


If you please, sir, I'm going to bed. " 

Off with you then, and I'll not forget the gown at Christ- 
mas. You're a sharp young woman, and I'm much obliged 
to you. " And for a moment he looked as if he were about to 
make the usual unmannerly acknowledgment of civility from a 
y-oung gentleman to a servant-maid, viz,, kissing her, but he 
pulled a face and drew back. He really couldn't; she was so 
very plain. 

At this moment there came a violent ring, and Fire!" was 
shouted through the key-hole of the door. Terrified, Elizabeth 
opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a man rushed in and 
laid, hands upon'A.scott. 

It was the sheriff's officer. 

When his trouble came upon him Ascott's manliness re- 
turned., He turned very white, but he made no opposition; 
had even enough of his wits about him — or something better 
than wits — to stop Mrs. Jones from rushing up in. alarm and 
indignation to arouse Miss Leaf. 

Ho; she'll know it quite, soon enough. Let her sleep till 
morning. Elizabeth, look here." . He wrote upon a card the 
address of the place he was to be taken to. Give Aunt Hil- 
ary this. Say if she can think of a way to get me out of this 
horrid mess; but I don't deserve— Never mind. Come on, 
you fellows." • 

He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped into the cab, and was 
gone. The whole thing had not occupied five minutes. 

Stupefied, Elizabeth stood and considered* what was best to 
be done. Miss Hilary must be told; but how to get at her in 
the middle of the night, thereby leaving her mistress to the 
mercy of Mrs. Jones. It would never do. Suddenly she 
thought of Miss Balquidder. She might send a message. No, 
not a message — for the family misery and disgrace must not 
be betrayed to a stranger — ^but a letter to Kensington. 


m 


MfSTRESS AND MAID. 


AVith an effort Elizabeth composed herself sufficiently to 
write one — her first — to her dear Miss Hilary. 

‘‘Honored Madame, — -Mr. Leaf has got himself into 
trouble, and is taken away somewhere; and I dare not tell 
missis; and I wish you was at home, as she is not well, but 
better than she has been and she shall know nothing about it 
till you come. Your obedient and affectionate servant, 

“ Elizabeth Hand.^^ 

Taking Ascott's latch-key, she quitted the house and slipped 
out into the dark night, almost losing her way among the 
gloomy squares, where she met not a creature except the soli- 
tary policeman plashing steadily along the wet pavement. 
When he turned the gliinmer of his bulEs-eye upon her she 
started like a guilty creature till she remembered that she 
really was doing nothing wrong, and so need not be afraid of 
anything. This was her simple creed, which Miss Hilary had 
taught her, and it upheld her, even till she knocked at Miss 
Balquidder^s door. 

There, poor girl, her heart sunk, especially when Miss Bal- 
q'uidder, in an anomalous costume and a severe voice, opened 
the door herself, and asked who was there, disturbing a re- 
spectable family at this late hour. 

Elizabeth answered, what she had before determined to say, 
as sufficiently explaining her errand, and yet betraying nothing 
that her mistress might wish concealed. 

“ Please ma^am, I^m Miss Leaf^s servant. My missis is ill, 
and I want a letter sent at once to Miss Hilary. 

“ Oh! come in, then. Elizabeth, I thmk, your name is?^^ 

“ Yes, ma^am.^^ 

“ What made you leave home at this hour of the night 
Did your mistress send you?^^ 

“No.^^ 

“ Is she so very ill? It seems sudden. I saw Miss Hilary 
to-day, and she knew nothing at all about it.'’'’ 

Elizabeth shrunk a little before the keen eye that seemed to 
read her through. 

“ There^s more amiss than yOu have told me, young woman. 
Is it because youi' mistress is in serious danger that you want 
to send for her sister 

“No.^\ 

“ What is it, then? You had better tell me at once. I hate 
concealment.^^ 

It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


133 


I beg your pardon, ma^am; but I don^’t think missis would 
like anybody to know, and therefore I^d rather not- tell you.^' 

Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated anything 
miderhand, but she respected the right of every human being 
to maintain silence if necessary. She looked sharply in Eliza- 
beth's face, which apparently reassured her, for she said, not 
unkindly. 

Very well, child, keep your mistresses secrets by all means. 
Only tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch 
Miss Hilary at oncepee 

Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not 
do; .it would be better just to send the note the first thing to- 
morrow morning, and then Miss Hilaiy would come home just 
as if notliing haS happened, and Miss Leaf would not be fright- 
ened by her sudden appearance. 

‘‘You are a good, mindful girl,^^ said Miss Balquidder. 
“ How did you learn to be so sensible?^ ^ 

At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and 
exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, and agi- 
tated by the feeling of having, for the first time in her life, to 
act on her own responsibility, gave way a little. She did not 
actually cry, but she was very near it. 

Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, im- 
perative voice, 

“ David, is your wife away to her bed yet?^^ 

“ No, ma^am.^^ 

“ Then tell her to fetch this yoimg woman to the kitchen 
and give her some supper. And afterward, will you see her 
safe home, poor lassie? She^s awfully tired, you see.^^ 

“ Yes, ma^am. 

And following David^s gray head, Elizabeth, for the first 
time since she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a 
comfortable kitchen, seasoned with such stories of Miss Bal- 
quidder^s goodness and generosity, that when, an hour after, 
she went home and to sleep, it was with a quieter and more 
hopeful spirit than she could have believed possible under the 
circumstances. 


CHAPTEE XVL 

Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious coun- 
tenance which those about an invalid must learn continually 
to wear, Elizabeth was trying to persuade her mistress not to 
rise, she heard a knock, and made some excuse for escaping. 
She well knew what it was, and who had come. 


134 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at 
her rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But 
that she had heard ever3dhing was clear enough. Her draTO 
white face, the tight clasp of her hands, showed that the ill 
tidings had struck her hard. 

Go away, Mrs. Jones, cried Elizabeth, fiercely. Miss 
Hilary will call when she wants you. 

And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of a 
push, somehow the woman was got on the other side of the 
parlor door, which Elizabeth immediately shut. Then Miss 
Hilary stretched her hands across the table and looked up 
piteously in her servant’s face. 

Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she could 
look for any comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter humilia- 
tion. There was no attempt at disguise or concealment be- 
tween mistress and maid. 

“Mrs. Jones has told me everything, Elizabeth. How is 
my sister? She does not know?’"’ 

“No; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. 
She has been very bad all week; only she would not let me 
send for you. She is really getting well now; I^m sure of 
that.^' 

“ Thank God!^^ And then Miss Hilary began to weep. 

Elizabeth also was thankful, even for the tears, for she had 
been perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, deeper 
than anything she could comprehend, or than the circum- 
stances seemed to warrant. 

It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott^s arrest; 
many a lad has got into debt and got out again— the first taste 
of the law proving a warning to him for life; but it was this 
ominous “beginning of the end."" The fatal end— which 
seemed to overhang like a hereditary cloud, to taint as with 
hereditary disease, the Leaf family. 

Another bitterness, (and who shall blame it, for when love is 
really love, have not the lovers a right to be one another "s first 
thought ?)— what %ould Robert Lyon say? To his honest Scotch 
nature poverty was nothing; honor everything. She knew his 
horror of debt was even equal to her own. This, and her be- 
lief in his freedom from all false pride, had sustained her 
against many doubts lest he might think the less of her be- 
cause of her present position — might feel ashamed could he 
see her sitting at her ledger in that high desk, or even occa- 
sionally servmg in the shop. 

Many a time things she would have passed over lightly on 
her OTO account she had felt on his; felt how they would annoy 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


135 


and vex him. The exquisitely natural thought which Tenny- 
son has put into poetry — 

“ If I am dear to some one else,- 
Then I should be to myself more dear ” — 

had often come, prosaically enough perhaps, into her head, 
and prevented her from spoiling her little hands with un- 
necessarily rough work, or carelessly passing down ill streets 
and by-ways where she knew Robert Lyon, had he been in 
London, would never have allowed her to go. Now what did 
such things signify? What need of taking care of herself? 
These were all superficial, external disgraces; the real disgrace 
was within. The plague-spot had burst out anew; it seemed 
as if this day were the recommencement of that bitter life of 
penury, misery, and humiliation, familiar through three gen- 
erations to the women of the Leaf family. 

It appeared like a fate. No use to try and struggle out of 
it, stretching her arms up to Robert Lyon^s tender, honest, 
steadfast heart, there to be sheltered, taken cafe of, and made 
happy. No happiness for her! Nothing but to go bn endur- 
ing and enduring to the end. 

Such was Hilafy^s first emotion: morbid perhaps, yet ex- 
cusable. It might have lasted longer — ^though in her healthy 
nature it could not have lasted very long — had not the reaction 
come, suddenly and completely, by the opening of the parlor 
door and the appearance of Miss Leaf. 

Miss Leaf — pale, indeed, but neither alarmed nor agitated, 
who, hearing somehow that her child had arrived, had hastily 
dressed herself and come down-stairs in order not to frighten 
Hilary. And as she took her in her arms, and kissed her with 
those mother-like kisses, which were the sweetest Hilary had 
as yet ever known, the sharp anguish went out of the poor 
girf^s heart. 

Oh, Johanna! I can bear anything as long as I have you.^^ 

And so in this simple and natural way the miserable secret 
about Ascott c^ftne out. 

Being once out, it did not seem half so dreadful; nor was its 
effect nearly so serious as Miss Hilary and Elizabeth had feared. 
Miss Leaf bore it wonderfully; she might almost have known 
it beforehand; they would have thought she had, but that she 
said decidedly she had not. 

Still you need not have minded telling me; though it was 
very good and thoughtful of you, Elizabeth. You have gone 
through a great deal for our sakes, my poor girl. 


136 MISTEESS AND MAID. 

Elizabeth burst into one smothered sob — the first and the 
last. 

“ Nay/^ said Miss Leaf, very kindly, for this unwonted emo- 
tion in their servant moved them both, ‘‘ you shall tell me the 
rest another time. Go down now, and get Miss Hilary some 
breakfast.’’^ 

When Elizabeth had departed the sisters turned to one an- 
other. They did not talk much; where was the use of it? 
They both knew the worst, both as to facts and fears. 

“ What must be done, Johanna?^'’ 

Johanna, after a long pause, said, I see but one thing — to 
get him home. 

Hilary started up, and walked to and fro along the room. 

“ No, not that. I will never agree to it. We can not help 
him. He does not deserve helping. If the debts were for food 
now, or any necessaries; but for, mere luxuries — mere fine 
clothes; it is his tailor who has arrested him, you know. I 
would rather have gone in rags! I would rather see us all in 
rags! It^s mean, selfish, cowardly, and I despise him for it. 
Though he is my own flesh and blood, I despise him. 

Hilary!'^ 

‘‘ No,'’^ and the tears burst from her angry eyes, I donT 
mean. that I despise him. I^m sorry for him; there is good in 
him, poor dear lad; but I despise. his weakness; I feel fierce to 
think how much it will cost us all, and especially you, Johanna. 
Only think what comforts of all sorts that thirty pounds would 
have brought to you!"*^ 

“God will provide,’^ said Johanna, earnestly. “But I 
know, my dear, this is sharper to you than to me. Besides, I 
have been more used to it. 

She closed her eyes with a half shudder, as if living over 
again the old days— when Henry Leaf "s wife and eldest daugh- 
ter used to have to give dinner-parties upon food that stuck in 
their throats, as if every morsel had been stolen; which in 
truth it was, and yet they were helpless, innocent tliieves; when 
they and the children had to wear clothes that seemed to poison 
them like the shirt of Dejanira; when they (furst not walk 
along special streets, nor pass particular shops, for the feeling' 
that the shop-people must be staring, and pointing, and gibing 
at them, “ Pay me what thou owest!^^ 

“ But things can. not again be so bad as those days, Hilary. 
Ascott is young; he may mend. People can mend, my child; 
and ho had such a different bringing-up from” what his father 
,M, and his grandfather too. We must not be hopeless yet. 
You see — and, making Hilary kneel down before her, she 


^flSTEESS AKD MAID. 


137 


took her by both hands, as if to impart something of her own 
quietness to this poor heart, struggling as young, honest, up- 
right hearts do struggle with something which their whole nat- 
ure revolts against, and loathes, and scorns — you see, the boy 
is our boy; our own flesh and blood. We were very foolish 
to let him away from us for so long. We might have made 
him better if we had kept him at Stowbury. But he is young; 
that is my hope of liim; and he was always fond of his aunts, 
and is still, I think. 

Hilary smiled sadly. Deeds, not words. I don^t believe 
in words. 

Well, let us put aside believing, and only act. Let us 
give him another chance. 

Hilary shook her head. Another, and another, and an- 
other — it will be always the same. I know it will. I can^t tell 
how it is, Johanna; but whenever I look at you, I feel so stem 
and hard to AscOtt. It seems as if there were circumstances 
when pity to some, to one, was wicked injustice to others; as 
if there were times when it is right and needful to lop off, at 
once and forever, a rotten branch, rather than let the whole 
tree go to rack and ruin. I would do it I I should think my- 
self justified in doing it. ’’ . ■ 

But not just yet. He is only a boy — our own boy.^^ 

And the two women, in both of whom the maternal passion 
existed strong and deep, yet in the one never had found, and 
in the other never might find, its natural channel, wept to- 
gether over this lad, almost as mothers weep. 

‘/But what -can we do^^ said Hilary at last. “Thirty 
pounds, and not a half-penny to pay it with; must we, borrow?^^ 

“ Oh, no — no,^^ was the answer, with a shrinking gesture; 
‘I no borrowing. There is the diamond ring. 

This was a sort of heir-loom from eldest daughter to eldest 
daughter of the Leaf family, which had been kept, even as a 
sort of superstition, through all temptations of poverty. The 
last time Miss Leaf looked at it she had remarked, jestingly, 
it should be given some day to that important personage talked 
of for many a year among the three aunts — Mrs. Ascott Leaf. 

“ Who must do without it now,^^ said Johanna, looking re- 
gretfully at the ring; “ that is, if he ever takes to himself a 
wife, poor boy. 

Hilary answered, beneath her breath, “ Unless he alters, I 
earnestly hope he never may. And there came over her in- 
voluntarily a wild, despairing thought. Would it not be better 
that neither Ascott nor herself shoifid ever be married, that the 
family might die out, and trouble the world no more? 


138 MISTRESS AMD MAID. 

Nevertheless, she rose up to do what she knew had to be done, 
and what there was nobody to do but herself. 

Don^t mind it, Johanna; for indeed I do not. I shall go 
to a first-rate, respectable jeweler, and he will not cheat me; 
and then I shall find my way to the sponging-house — isn^t that 
what they call it.^ I dare say many a poor woman has been 
there before me. I am not the first, and shall not be the last, 
and nobody will harm me. I think I look honest, though my 
name is Leaf.*^^ 

J She laughed — a bitter laugh; but Johanna silenced it in a 
close embrace; and when Hilary rose up again she was quite her 
natm'al self. She summoned Elizabeth, and began giving her 
all domestic directions, just as usual; finally,, bade her sister 
good-bye in a tone as like her usual tone as possible, and left 
her settled on the sofa in content and peace. 

Elizabeth followed to the door. Miss Hilary had asked her 
for the card on which Ascott had written the address of the 
place where he had been taken to; and though the girl said not 
a word, her anxious eyes made piteous inquiry. 

Her mistress patted her on the shoulder. 

. “ Never mind about me; I shall come to no harm, Eliza- 

beth."" 

It"s a bad place; such a dreadful place, Mrs. Jones says."" 

Is it?"" Elizabeth guessed part, not the whole of the feel- 
ings that made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the duty be- 
fore her, turning first so hot, and then so pale. Only as a duty 
could she have done it at all. No matter, I must go. Take 
care of my sister. "" 

She ran down the doorsteps, and walked quickly through 
the Crescent. It was a clear, sunshiny, frosty day — such a 
day as always both cheered and calmed her. She had, despfte 
all her cares, youth, health, energy; and a holy and constant 
love lay like a sleeping angel in her heart. Must I tell the 
truth, and own that before she had gone two streets" length 
Hilary ceased to feel so very, very miserable? 

Love— this kind of love of which I speak — is a wonderful 
thing, the most wonderful thing in all the world. The strength 
it gives, the brightness, the actual happiness, even in the 
hardest times, is often quite miraculous. When Hilary sat 
waiting in the jeweler"s shop, she watched a little episode of 
high life — two wealthy people choosing their marriage -plate; 
the bride, so careless and haughty; the bridegroom, so lin- 
utterably mean to look at, stamped with that innate smallness 
and coarseness of soul which liis fine clothes only made more 
apparent. And she thought — oh, how fondly she thought! — > 


MISTEESS AN-D MAID. 141 

as you. 1^11 balance my books every week — every day, if you 
like — exactly as you do at that horrid shop, Aunt Hilary. 

So he was rattling on, but Hilary stopped him by pointing 
to the figures. 

‘‘You see, this sum is more than we expected. How is it 
to be met? Think for yourself. You are a man now. 

“ I know that,"*^ said Ascott, sullenly; “ but what’s the use 
of it? Money only makes the man, and I have none. If the 
ancient Peter would but die now and leave me his heir, though 
to be sure Aunt Selina might be puttmg her oar in. Perhaps 
— considering I’m Aimt Sehna’s nephew — if I were to walk 
into the old chap now, he might be induced to fork out! 
Hurrah! that’s a splendid idea.” 

“ What idea?” 

‘‘ I’ll borrow the money frorii old Ascott.” 

“ That means, because he has already given, you would have 
him keep on giving — and you would take, and take, and take 
— Ascott, I’m ashamed of you.” 

But Ascott only burst out laughing. “Nonsense! he has 
money and I have none; why shouldn’t he give it me?” 

“Why?” she repeated, her eyes flashing and her little 
feminine figure seeming to grow taller while she spoke; “ I’ll 
tell you, since you don’t seem yourself to understand it. Be- 
cause a young man, with health and strength in him, should 
blush to eat any bread but what he himself earns. Because he 
should work at anything and everything, stint himself of eveiy 
luxury and pleasure, rather than ask or borrow, or, except un- 
der rare circumstances, rather than be indebted to any living 
soul for a single half-penny. I would not, if I were a young 
man. ” 

“ What a nice young man you would make. Aunt Hilary!” 

There was something in the lad’s imperturbable good humor 
at once irritating and disarming. Whatever his faults, they 
were more negative than positive; there was no malice prepense 
about him, no absolute personal wickedness. And he had. the 
strange charm of manner and speech which keeps up one’s 
outer surface of habitual affection toward a person long after 
all its foundations of trust and respect have hopelessly 
(^rumbled away. 

“ Come, now, my pretty aunt must go with me. She will 
manage the old ogre much better than I. And he must be 
managed somehow. It’s all very fine talking of independence, 
but isn’t it hard that a poor fellow should be Hving .in con- 
stant dread of being carried off to that horrid, uncleanly. 


U2 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


beastly den — ball! I don^t like tfiinkin^ of it — ^aiid all for want 
of twenty pounds? You must go to him. Aunt Hilary/^ 

She saw they must — ^there was no help for it. Even J ohanna 
said so. It was, after all, only asking for Ascott^s quarterly 
allowance three days in advance, for it was due on Tuesday. 
But what jarred against her proud, honest spirit was the im- 
plication that such a request gave of taking as a right that 
which had been so long bestowed as a favor. Nothing but 
the great strait they were in could ever have driven her to con- 
sent that Mr. Ascott should be applied to at all; but since it 
must be done, she felt that she had better do it herself. Was 
it from some lurking doubt or dread that Ascott might not 
speak the entire truth, as she had insisted upon its being 
spoken, before Mr. Ascott was asked for anything; since what- 
ever he gave must be given 'with a full knowledge on his part 
of the whole pitiable state of affairs. 

It was with a strange, sad feeling — the sadder because he 
never seemed to suspect it, but talked and laughed with her as 
usual — that she took her nephew’s arm and walked silently 
through the dark squares, perfectly well aware that he only 
asked her to go with him in order to do an unpleasant thing 
Avhich he did not hke to do himself, and that she only went with 
him in the character of watch, or supervisor, to try and save 
him from domg something which she herself would be ashamed 
should be done. 

Yet he was ostensibly the head, hope, and stay of the family. 
Alas! many a family has to submit to, and smile under an 
equally melancholy and fatal sham. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Mk. Ascott was sitting half asleep in his solitary dining- 
room, his face rosy with wine, his heart warmed also, probably 
from the same cause. Not that he was in the least “ tipsy ” 
—that low word applicable only to low people, and not to men 
of property, who have a right to enjoy all the good things of 
this life. He was scarcely even merry,” merely comforta- 
ble,” in that cozy, benevolent state which middle-aged or 
elderly gentlemen are apt to fall into after a good dinner and 
good wme, when they have no mental resources, and the said 
good dinner and good wine constitutes their best notion of 
felicity. 

Yet wealth and comfort are not things to be despised. Hilary 
herself was not insensible to the pleasantness of this warm, 
well-lighted, crimson-atmosphered apartment. She as well as 


MISTRESS AND 'maid.. l43 

her neighbors liked pretty things about her, soft, harmonious 
colors to look at and wear, well-cooked food to eat, cheerful 
rooms to live in. If she could have had all these luxuries 
with those she loved to share them, no doubt she would have 
been much happier. But yet she felt to the full that solemn 
truth that “ a man^s life consisteth not in the abundance of 
things that he possesses and though hers was outwardly so 
dark, so full of poverty, anxiety, and pain, still she knew that 
inwardly it owned many things, one thing especially, which no 
money could buy, and without which fine houses, fine furniture, 
and fine clothes — indeed, all the comforts and splendors of ex- 
istence, would be worse than valueless — actual torment. So, 
as she looked around her, she felt not the slightest envy of her 
sister Selina. 

Jlor of honest Peter, who rose up from his arm-chair, pull- 
ing the yellow silk handkerchief from his sleepy face, and, it 
must be confessed, receiving his future connections very will- 
ingly, and even kindly. 

Now how was he to be told? How, when she and Ascott 
sat over the wine and dessert he had ordered for them, listen- 
ing to the rich man^s complaisant pomposities, were they to 
explain that they had come a-begging, asking him, as the 
climax to his liberalities, to advance a few pounds in order to 
keep the young man whom he had for years generously and 
sufficiently maintained out of prison? This, smooth it over as 
one might, was, Hilary felt, the plain English of the matter, 
and as minute after minute lengthened, and nothing was said 
of their errand, she sat upon thorns. 

But Ascott drank his wine and eat his walnuts quite com- 
posedly. 

At last Hilary said,, in a sort of desperation, ‘‘ Mr. Ascott, 
I want to speak to you.-’ ^ 

‘‘ With pleasure, my dear young lady. Will you come to 
my study? I have a most elegantly furnished study, I assure 
you. And any affair of youi's — 

‘‘ Thank you, but it is not mine; it concerns my nephew 
here.'’^ 

And then she braced up all her courage, and while Ascott 
busied himself over his walnuts — he had the grace to look ex- 
cessively uncomfortable — she told, as briefly as possible, the 
bitter truth. 

Mr. Ascott listened, apparently without surprise, and, aii}^- 
how, without comment. His self-important loquacity ceased, 
and his condescending smile passed into a sharp, reticent, busi- 
ness look. He knitted his shaggy brows, contracted that 


144 


MISTRESS AETD MAID. 


coarsely hung but resolute mouth, in which lay the secret of 
his success in life, buttoned up his coat, and stuck his hands 
behind him over his coat-tails. As he stood there on his own 
hearth, with all his comfortable splendors about him — a man 
who had made his own money, hardly and honestly, who from 
the days when he was a poor errand-lad had had no one to , 
trust to but liimself, yet had managed always to help himself, * 
ay, and others too — HUary^s stem sense of justice contrasted 
him with the gi-aceful young man who sat opposite to him, so 
much his inferior, and so much his debtor. She owned that 
Peter Ascott had a right to look both contemptuous and dis- 
pleased. 

A very pretty story, but I almost expected it,^^ said he. 

And there he stopped. In his business capacity he was too 
acute a man to be a man of many words, and his feelings, if 
they existed, were kept to himself. 

‘‘ It all comes to this, young man,^^ he continued, after an 
uncomfortable pause, in which Hilary could have counted 
eveiy beat of her heart, and even Ascott played with his wine- 
glass in a nervous kind of way— “ you want money, and you 
think I'm sure to give it, because it wouldn't be just pleasant 
just now to have discreditable stories going about concerning 
the future Mrs. Ascott 's relatives. You're quite right, it 
wouldn't. But I'm too old a bird to be caught with chalf for 
all that. You must rise very early in the morning to take me 
in." 

Hilary started up in an agony of shame. “ That's not fair, 
Mr. Ascott. We do not take you in. Have we not told you 
the whole truth? I was determined you should know it before 
we asked you for one farthing of your money. If there were 
the smallest shadow of- a chance for Ascott in any other way, 
we never would have come to you at all. It is a horrible, hor- 
rible humiliation ! " 

It might be that Peter Ascott had a soft place in his heart, 
or that this time, just before his marriage, was the one crisis 
which sometimes occurs in a hard man's life, when, if the 
right touch comes, he becomes malleable ever after; but he 
looked kindly at the poor girl, and said, in quite a ffentlv 
way, 

‘‘ Don't vex yourself, my dear. I shall give the young fel- 
low what he wants; nobody ever called Peter Ascott stingy. 
But he has cost me enough already; he must shift for himself 
now. Hand me over tliat check-book, Ascott; but remember, 
this is the last you'll ever see of my money." 

He wrote the memorandum of the check inside the page^ 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


14S 


then tore off the check itself, and proceeded to write the words 

Twenty poimds/' date it, and sign it, lingering over the 
signature as if he had a certain pride in the honest name 
“ Peter Ascott,^^ and was well aware of its monetary value on 
’Change and elsewhere. 

'' There, Miss Hilary, I flatter myself that’s not a bad signa- 
ture, nor would be easily forged. One can not he too careful 
over — What’s that? a letter, John?” . 

By his extreme eagerness, almost snatcliing it from his foot- 
man’s hands, it was one of importance. He made some sort of 
rough apology, drew the writing materials to him, wix)te one 
or two business-looking letters, and made out one or two more 
checks. 

“ Here’s yours, Ascott; take it, and let me have done with 
it,” said he, throwing it across the table folded up. ‘‘ Can’t 
waste time on such small transactions. Ma’am, excuse me, 
but flve thousand pounds depends on my getting tho^ letters 
written and sent off within a quarter of an hour.” 

Hilary bent her head, and sat watching the pen scratch, and 
the clock tick on the mantel-piece; thinking if this really was 
to be the last of his godfather’s allowance, what on earth Would 
become of Ascott? For Ascott himseK, he said not a word; 
not even when, the letters dispatched, Mr. Ascott rose, and 
administering a short, sharp homily, tacitly dismissed his vis- 
itors. Whether this silence was sullenness, cowardice, or shame, 
Hilary could not guess. 

She quitted the house with a sense of grinding humiliation 
almost intolerable. But still the, worst was over; the money 
had been begged and given — there was no fear of a prison. 
And, spite of everything, Hilary felt a certain relief that this 
was the last time Ascott would be indebted to his godfather. 
Perhaps this total cessation of extraneous help might force the 
young man upon his own resources, compel his easy tempera- 
ment into active energy, and bring out in him those dormant 
qualities that liis aunts still fondly hoped existed in him. 

‘‘ Don’t be down-hearted, Ascott,” she said; “ we will man- 
age to get on somehow till you hear of a practice, and then you 
m{i^ work--work like a ‘ brick,’ as you call it. You will, I 
know. 

He answered nothing. 

‘"I won’t let you give, in, my boy,” she went on, kindly. 

Who would ever dream of giving in at your age, with health 
and strength, a good education, and no incumbrances what- 
ever — not even aunts I for we will not stand in your way, be 
sure of that. If you can not settle here, you shall try to get 


146 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


out abroad, as you have sometimes wished, as an army-surgeon 
or a ship^s doctor; you say these appointments are easy enough 
to be h^. Why not try? Anything; we will consent to any- 
thing, if only we can see your life busy, and useful, and hap- 

py-'' 

Thus she talked, feeling far more tenderly to him in his for- 
lorn despondency than when they had quitted the house two 
hours before. But Ascott took not the slightest notice. A 
strange fit of sullenness or depression seemed to have come 
over him, which, when they reached home and met Aunt 
Johanna^s silently questioning face, changed into devfi-may- 
care indifference. 

Oh, yes, aunt, weVe done it; weVe got the money, and 
now I may go to the dogs as soon as I like. 

‘‘ No,^^ said Aunt Hilary, it is nothing of the sort; it is 
only that Ascott must now depend upon himself, and not upon 
his go^ather. Take courage, she added, and went up to him 
and kissed him on the forehead; wefil never let our boy go 
to the dogs! and as for this disappointment, or any disappoint- 
ment, why, it's just like a cold bath; it takes away your breath 
for the time, and then you rise up out of it brisker and fresher 
than ever. " 

But Ascott shook his head with a fierce denial. “Why 
should that old fellow be as rich as Croesus and I as poor as a 
rat? Why should I be put into the world to enjoy myself, 
and can't? Why was I made like what I am, and then 
punished for it? Whose fault is it. 

Ay, whose? The eternal, unsolvable problem rose up be- 
fore Hilary's imagination. The ghastly specter of that ever- 
lasting doubt, which hamits even the firmest faith sometimes 

and which all the nonsense written about that mystery which, 

“ Binding nature fast in fate, 

Leaves free the human will,” 

only makes darker than before — oppressed her for the time be- 
ing with an inexpressible dread. 

. Ay, why was it that the boy was what he was? From his 
nature, his temperament, or his cil-cumstances? 
VVhat, or, more^awful question still, who was to blame? 

But as Hilary's thoughts went deeper down the question an- 
swered itself at least as far as it ever can be answered in tliis 
narrow, finite stage of bemg. Whose will — we dare not say 

must inevitably generate evil? 
that the smallest wrong-doing in any human being rouses a 
chain of results which may fatally involve other human beings 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 147 

in an almost incalculable circle of misery? The wages of sin 
is death. ^ Were it not so, sin would cease to be sin, and holi- 
ness, holiness. If He, the All-holy, who for some inscrutable 
purpose saw fit to allow the existence of evil, allowed any other 
law than this, in either the spiritual or material world, would 
He not be denying himself, counteracting the necessities of 
His own righteous essence, to which evil is so antagonistic, that 
we can not doubt it must be in the end cast into total annihila- 
tion — into the allegorical lake of fire and brimstone, which is 
the ‘‘ second death Hay, do they not in reality deny Him 
and His holiness almost as much as Atheists do, who preach 
-that the one great salvation which He has sent into the world 
is a salvation /rom imnishment — a keeping out of hell and get- 
ting into heaven — instead of a salvation from sin, from the 
power ad love of sin, through the love of God in Christ? 

I tell these thoughts, because like lightning they passed 
through Hilary'’ s mind, as sometimes a whole chain of thoughts 
do, link after link, and because they helped her to answer her 
nephew quietly and briefiy, for she saw he was in no state of 
mind to be argued with. 

I can not explain, Ascott, why it is that any of us are 
what we are, and why things happen to us as they do? it is a 
question we none of us understand, and in this world never 
shall. But if we know what we ought to be, and how we may 
make the best of everything, good or bad, that happens to us, 
surely that is enough, without perplexing ourselves about any- 
thing more. ” 

Ascott smiled, half contemptuously, half carelessly: he was 
not a young fellow likely to perplex himself long or deeply 
about these sort of things. 

“ Anyhow, IVe got £20 in my pocket, so I canT staiwe for 
a day or two. Let^s see; where is it to be cashed? Halloo! 
who would have thought the old fellow would have been so 
stupid? Look there. Aunt Hilary 

She was so unfamiliar with checks for £20, poor little 
woman! that she did not at first recognize the omission of the 
figures “ £20 at the left-hand corner. Otherwise the check 
was correct. 

‘‘Ho, ho!^^ laughed Ascott, exceedingly amused, so easily 
was the current of his mind changed. “ It must have been 
the £5000 pending that muddled the cute old fellow's brains. 
I wonder whether he will remember it afterward, and come 
posting up to see that I have taken no ill advantage pi his 
blunder; changed this ‘Twenty' into ‘Seventy.'^ I easily 
could, and put the figures £70 here. What a good joke!" 


148 


MISTKESS AKD MAID. 


Had you not better go to him at once, and have the niattei* 
put rightr^ 

“ EubbishI I can put it right myseE. It makes no differ- 
ence who fills up a check, so that it is signed all correct. A 
deal you women know of business 

But still Hilary, with a certain womanish uneasiness about 
money-matters, and an dnxiety to have the thing settled be- 
yond doubt, urged him to go. 

‘‘Very well; just as you Hke. I do believe you are afraid of 
my turning forger. 

He buttoned his coat with a half -sulky, half -defiant air, left^ 
his supper untasted, and disappeared. 

It was midnight before he returned. His aunts were still 
sitting up, imagining all sorts of horrors, in an anxiety too 
great for words; but when Hilary ran to the door with the 
natural “ Oh, Ascott, where have you been?^^ he pushed her 
aside with a gesture that was almost fierce in its repulsion. 

“ Where have I been? taking a walk round the park; that^s 
all. Can’t I come and go as I like, without being pestered by 
women? I’m horribly thed. Let me alone — do!” 

They did let him alone. Deeply wounded. Aunt Johanna 
took no further notice of liim than to set his chair a little 
closer to the fire, and Aunt Hilary slipped down-stairs for more 
coals. There she found Ehzabeth, who they thought had long 
since gone to bed, sitting on the stairs, very sleepy, but watch- 
ing still. 

“ Is he come in?” she asked; “ because there are more 
baiUffs after him. I’m sure of it; I saw them.” 

This, then, might account for his keeping out of the way till 
after twelve o’clock, and also for his wild, haggard look. Hil- 
ary put aside her vague dread of some new misfortune; assured 
Elizabeth that all was right; he had got wherewithal to pay 
everybody on Monday morning, and would be safe till then. 
All debtors were safe on Sunday. 

“ Go to bed now — there’s a good girl; it is hard that you 
should be troubled with our troubles.” 

Elizabeth looked up with those fond gray eyes of hers. She 
was but a servant, and yet looks like these engraved themselves 
inefl'aceably on her mistress’s heart, imparting the comfort 
that all pure love gives from any one human being to another. 

And love has its wonderful rights and rewards. Perhaps 
Elizabeth, who thought herself nothing at all to her mistress, 
would have marveled to know how mach closer her mistress 
felt to this poor, honest, loving girl, whose truth she believed 
in, and on whose faithfulness she implicitly depended, than 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


149 


toward her own flesh and blood, who sat there moodily over 
the hearth; deeply pitied, sedulously cared for, but as for 
being confided in, relied on, in great matters or small, his own 
concerns or theirs* — ^the thing wa^impossible. 

They would not even ask him — they dared not, in such a 
strange mood was* he — the simple question. Had he seen Mr. 
Ascott, and had Mr. AsCott been annoyed, about the check? It 
would not have been referred to at all had not Hilary, in hold- 
ing his coat to dry, taken his pocket-book out of the breast- 
pocket, when he snatched at -it angrily. 

What are you meddling with my things for? Do you 
want to get at the check, and be peering at it to see if it’s all 
right? But you can’t; I’ve paid it away. Perhaps you’d like 
to know who to? Then you sha’n’t. I’ll not be accountable 
to you for all my proceedings. I’ll not be treated like a baby. 
You’d better mind what you are about. Aunt Hilary.” 

Never, in all his childish naughtiness or boyish impertinence, 
had Ascott spoken to her in such a tone. She regarded him 
at first with simple astonishment, then hot indignation, which 
spurred her on to stand up for her dignity, and not submit to 
be insulted by her own nephew. But then came back upon 
her her own doctrine, taught by her own experience, that 
character and conduct alone constitutes real dignity or author- 
ity. She had, in point of fact, no authority over him; no one 
can have, not even parents, over a young man of his age, ex- 
cept that personal infiuence which is the strongest sway of all. 

She said only, with a quietness that surprised herself, “You 
mistake, Ascott; I have no wish to interfere with you what- 
ever; you are your own master, and must take your own course. 
I only expect from you the ordinary respect that a gentleman 
shows to a lady. You must be very tired or ill, or you would 
not have forgotten that.” 

“ I didn’t; or, if I did, I beg your pardon,” said he, half 
subdued. When are you going to bed?” 

“ Directly. Shall I light your candle also?” 

“ Oh, no, not for the world; I couldn’t sleep a wink. I’d 
go mad if I went to bed. I think I’ll turn out and have a 
cigar. ” 

His whole manner was so strange that his amit J ohanna, 
who had sat aloof, terribly grieved, but afraid to interfere, was 
moved to rise up and go over to him. 

“ Ascott, my dear, you are looking quite ill. Be advised by 
ynur old auntie. Go to bed at once, and forget everything till 
morning.” 

“ I wish I could— I wish I could. Oh, auntie, auntie!” 


MISTKESS AKD MAID. 


150 

He caught hold of her hand, which she laid upon his head, 
looked up a minute into her kind, fond face, and burst into a 
flood of boyish tears. 

Evidently his troubles had J)een too much for him; he was 
in a state of great excitement. For some mintites his sobs were 
almost hysterical; then by a struggle he recovered himself, 
seemed exceedingly annoyed and ashamed, took up his candle, 
bade them a hurried good-night, and went to bed. 

That is, he went to his room; but they heard him moving 
about overhead for a long while after; nor were they surprised 
that he refused to rise next morning, but lay most of the time 
with his door locked until late in the afternoon, when he went 
out for a long walk, and did not return till supper, which he 
eat almost in silence. Then, after going up to his room, and 
coming down again, complaining bitterly how very cold it was, 
he crept in to the fireside with a book in his hand, of which 
Hilary noticed he scarcely read a line. 

His aunts said nothing to him; they had determined not; 
they felt that further interference would be not only useless, 
but dangerous. 

‘‘He will come to himself by and by; his moods, good or 
bad, never last long, you know,^^ said Hilary, somewhat bit- 
terly. “ But, in the meantime, I think we - had better just do 
as he says — let him alone.-’' 

And in that sad, hopeless state they passed the last hours of 
that dreary Sunday — afraid either to comfort him or reason 
with him; afraid, above all, to blame him, lest it might drive 
him altogether astray. That he was in a state of great misery, 
half sidlen, half defiant, they saw, and were scarcely surprised 
at it; it was very hard not to be able to open their loving 
hearts to him, as those of one family should always do, making 
every trouble a common care, and every joy a universal bless- 
ing. But in his present state of mind— the sudden obstinacy 
of a weak nature conscious of its weakness, and dreading con- 
trol-^it seemed impossible either to break upon his silence or 
to force his confidence. 

They might have been right in this, or wrong; afterward 
Hilary thought the latter. Many a time she wished and 
wished, with a bitter regret, that instead of the quiet “ Good- 
night, Ascott!" and the one rather cold kiss on his forehead, 
she had flung her arms roimd his neck, and insisted on his tell- 
ing out his whole mind to her, his nearest kinswoman, who 
had been half aunt and half sister to him all his life. But it 
was not done: she parted from him, as she did Sunday after 


MISTBESS AKD MAID. 151 

Sunday, with a sore, sick feeling of how much he might he to 
her, to them all, and how little he really was. 

If this silence of hers was a mistake — one of those mistakes 
which sensitive people sometimes make — it was, like all similar 
errors, only too sorrowfully remembered and atoned for. 


CHAPTER XVm. 

The week passed by, and Hilary received no ill tidings from 
home. Incessant occupation kept her from dwelling too much 
on anxious subjects; besides, she would not have thought it 
exactly right, while her time and her mental powers were for 
so many hours per diem legally Miss Balquidder^s, to waste the 
one and weaken the other by what is commonly called “ fret- 
ting.'’^ Kor, carrying this conscientious duty to a higher de- 
gree and toward a higher Master, would she have dared to sit 
grievmg overmuch over their dark future. And yet it was 
very dark. She pondered over what was to be done with 
lAscott, or whether he was still to be left to the hopeless hope 
of doing something for himself; how long the little establish- 
ment at No. 15 could be kept together, or if, after Selina’s 
marriage, it would not be advisable to make some change that 
should contract expenses, and prevent this hard separation, 
from Monday to Saturday, between Johanna and herself. 

These, with equally anxious thoughts, attacked her in 
crowds every day and every hour; but she had generally sufii- 
cient will to put them aside, at least till after work was done, 
and they could neither stupefy not paralyze her. Trouble had 
to her been long enough familiar to have taught her its own 
best lesson — that the mind can, in degree, rule itself, even as 
it rules the body. 

Thus, in her business duties, which were principally keeping 
accounts; in her management of the two young people under 
her, and of the small domestic establishment connected with 
the shop, Hilary went steadily on, day after day; made no 
blunders in her arithmetic, no mistakes in her housekeeping. 
Being new to all her responsibilities, she had to give her whole 
mind to them; and she did it; and it was a blessing to her — 
the sanctified blessing which rests upon labor, almost seeming 
to neutralize its primeval curse. 

But night after night, wdien work was over, she sat alone at 
her sewing — the only time she had for it — and her thoughts 
Went faster than her needle. She turned over plan after plan, 
and went back upon hope after hope, that had risen and 


15S 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


broken like waves of the sea — nothing happening that she had 
expected; the only thing which had happened^ or which seemed 
to have any permanence or reality, being two things which she 
had never expected at all — Selina^s marriage, and her own en- 
gagement with Miss Balquidder. It often happens so, in most 
people’s lives, rmtil at last they learn to hve on from day to 
day, doing each day’s duty within the day, and believing that 
it is a righteous as well as a tender hand which keeps the next 
day’s page safely folded down. 

So Hilary sat, glad to have a quiet hour, not to grieve in, 
but to lay out the details of a plan which had been maturing 
in her mind all week, and which she meant definitely to pro- 
pose to Johanna when she went home next day. It would cost 
her something to do so, and she had had some hesitations as 
to the scheme itself, until at last she threw them aU to the 
winds, as an honest-hearted, faithful, and faithfully trusted 
woman would. Her plan was, that they should write to the 
only real friend the family had — the only good man she be- 
lieved in — stating plainly their troubles and difiiculties about 
their nephew; asking his advice, and possibly his help. H| 
might know of something — some opening for a young surgeon 
in India, or some temporary appointment for the voyage out 
and home, which might catch Ascott’s erratic and easily 
attracted fancy; give him occupation for the time being, and 
at least detach him from his present life, with all its tempta- 
tions and dangers. 

Also, it might result in bringing the boy again under that 
influence which had been so beneficial to him while it lasted, 
and which Hilary devoutly behoved was the best influence in 
- the world. Was it unnatural if mingled with an earnest de- 
sire for Ascott’s good was an underlying delight that that good 
should be done to him by Robert Lyon? 

So, when her plan was made, even to the very words in 
which she meant to unfold it to Johanna, and the very form 
in which J ohanna should write the letter, she allowed herself a 
few brief minutes to tlhiik of him — Robert Lyon — to call up 
his eyes, his voice, his smile; to count, for the hundredth 
time, how many months — one less than twenty-four, so she 
could not say years now — it would be before he returned to 
England. Also, to speculate when and where they would first 
meet, and how he would speak the one word — all that was 
needful to change liking ” into love,” and “ friend ” into 
wife.” They had so grown together during so many years, 
not the less so during these years of absence, that it seemed. as 
if such a change would hardly make any difference. And yet 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


153 

— and yet — as she sat and sewed, wearied with her day^s 
labors, sad and perplexed, she thought — if only by some 
strange magic, Robert Lyon was standing opposite, holding 
open his arms, ready and glad to take her and all her cares to 
his heart, how she would cling there! how closely she would 
creep to him, weeping with joy and content, neither afraid nor 
ashamed to let him see how dearly she loved him! 

Only a dreana! ah, only a dream ! and she started from it at 
the sharp sound of the door-bell — started, blushing and trem- 
bling, as if it had been Robert Lyon himself, when she knew 
it was only her two young assistants whom she had allowed to 
go out to tea in the neighborhood. So she settled herself to 
her work again ; put all her own thoughts by in their little private 
corners, and waited for the entrance and the harmless gossip 
of these two orphan girls, who were already beginning to love 
her, and to make a friend of her, and toward whom she felt 
herself quite an elderly and responsible person. Poor little 
Hilary! It seemed to be her lot always to take care of some- 
body or other. Would it ever be that anybody should take 
care of her? 

So she cleared away some of her needle-work, stirred the 
fire, which was dropping hollow and dull, and looked up pleas- 
antly to the opening door. But it was not the girls: it was a 
man^s foot and a man^s voice. 

“ Any person of the name of Leaf living here? I wish to 
see her, on business. 

At another time she would have laughed at the manner and 
words, as if it were impossible so great a gentleman as Mr. 
Ascott could want to see so small a person as the ‘‘ person of 
the name of Leaf,^^ except on business. But now she was 
startled by his appearance at all. She sprung up only able to 
articulate*^ My sister — 

Don^t be frightened; your sisters are quite well. I called 
aihlo. 15 an hour ago.^^ 

‘‘ You saw them?^^ 

No; I thought it unadvisable, under the circumstances.’^ 

“ What circumstances?” 

‘‘ I will explain, if you will allow me to sit down; bah! I’ve 
brought in sticking to me a straw out of that confounded shaky 
old cab. One ought never to be so stupid as to go anywhere 
except in one’s own carriage. This is rather a small room. 
Miss Hilary.” 

He eyed it curiously round; and, lastly, with his most acute 
look, he eyed herself, as if he wished to find out something 
from her manner before going into further explanations. 


164 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


But she stood before him a little uneasy, and yet not very 
much so. The utmost she expected was som^e quarrel with her 
sister Selina; perhaps the breaking off of the match, which 
would not have broken Hilary^s heart, at all events. 

“ So you have really no idea what I^m come about 

‘‘ Not the slightest. 

“Well!’^ said Peter Ascott, “I hardly thought it; but 
when one has been taken in as I have been, aifd this isnT the 
first time by your family — 

' i yourself r 



unpleasant business I come 


aboufc; any other gentleman but me would have come with a 
police-officer at his back. Look here. Miss Hilary Leaf— did 
you ever set eyes on this before?^’ 

He took out his check-book, turned deliberately over the 
small memorandum halves of the page till he came to one in 
particular, then hunted in his pocket-book for something. 

‘‘ My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I 
donT usually go over oftener than three months; he knew that, 
the scamp 

Hilary looked up. 

‘‘ Your nephew, to be sure. See!’^ 

He spread before her a check, the very one she had watched 
him write seven days before, made payable to “ Ascott Leaf, 
or bearer, and signed with the bold, pecuHar signature, 
“ Peter Ascott. Only, instead of being a check for twenty 
pounds, it was for seventy. 

Instantly the whole truth flashed upon Hilary; Ascott ^s re- 
mark about how easily the T could be made into an S, and 
what a “ good joke it would be; his long absence that night; 
his stran^ manner; liis refusal to let her see the check again; 
all was clear as daylight. 

Unfortunate boy! the temptation ha”d been too strong for 
liim. Under what sudden, insane impulse he had acted — un- 
der what delusion of being able to repay in time; or of Mr. 
Ascott ’s not detecting the fraud; or, if discovered, of its being 
discovered after the marriage, when to prosecute liis wife^s 
nephew would be a disgrace to himself, could never be known. 
But there unmistakable was the altered check, Avhich had been 
presented and paid, the banker, of course, not having the 
shghtest suspicion of anything amiss. 

“Well, isnT this a nice return for all my kindness? So 
cleverly done, too. But for the merest chance I might not 
have found it out for three months. Oh, he^s a precious young 
rascal, this nephew of yours. His father was only a fool, but 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 155 

he — Do you know that this is a matter of forgery — forgery, 
ma^am, ” added Mr. Ascott, waxing hot in his indignation. 

Hilary Uttered a hitter groan. 

Yes, it was quite true. Their Ascott, their own boy, was no 
longer merely idle, extravagant, thoughtless — faults had 
enough, but capable of being mended as he grew older: he 
had done that which to the end of his days he could never blot 
out. He was a swindler and a forger. 

She clasped her hands tightly together, as one struggling 
with sharp physical pain, trying to read the expression of Mr. 
Ascott ^s face. At last she put her question into words. 

“ What do you mean to do? Shall you prosecute him?^^ 

Mr. Ascott crossed his legs, and settled his neckcloth with a 
self-satisfied air. He evidently rather enjoyed the importance 
of his position. To be dictator, almost of life and death, to 
this unfortunate family was worth certainly fifty pounds. 

“ Well, I havenT exactly determined. The money, you see, 
is of no moment to me, and I couldnT get it back anyhow. 
Hefil never be worth a half-penny, that rascal. I might prose- 
cute, and nobody blame me; indeed, if I were to decline marry- 
ing your sister, and cut the whole set of you, I donT see,^^ and 
he drew himself up, ‘‘ that anything cordd be said against me. 
But— 

. Perhaps, hard man as he was, he was touched by the agony 
of suspense in Hilary ^s face, for he added, 

“ Come,, come, I wonT disgrace your family; I won’t do 
anything to harm the fellow. ” 

“ Thank you!” said Hilary, in a mechanical, imnatural 
voice. 

‘‘ As for my money, he’s welcome to it, and much good may 
it do him. ‘ Set a beggar on horseback, and he’ll ride to the 
devil,’ and in double quick time too. I won’t hinder him. I 
wash my liands of the yomig scapegrace. But he’d better not 
come near me again.” 

‘‘No,” acquiesced Hilary, absently. 

“ In fact,” said Mr. Ascott, with a twinkle of his sharp eye, 
“ I have already taken measures to frighten him away, so that 
he may make himself scarce, and give neither you nor me any 
further trouble. I drove up to your door with a policeman, 
asked to see -Mr. Leaf, and when I heard that he was out— a 
lie, of course — I left word I’d be back in half an hour. De- 
pend upon it,” and he winked confidentially, “ he will smell a 
rat, and. make a moonlight flitting of it, and we shall never 
hear of him any more. ” 

“ Never hear of Ascott any more?” repeated Hilary; and for 


156 iMiSTKESS AND MAID, ^ 

an instant she ceased to think of him as what he was ^swindler, 
forger, ungrateful to his benefactors, a disgrace to his home 
and family* She saw only the boy Ascott, with his hiight looks 
and pleasant ways, whom his aunts had brought up from ms 
cradle, and loved with all his faults — perhaps loved still. 

‘‘ Oh, I must go home. This will break Johanna’s heart! 

Mr. Peter Ascott possibly never had a heart, or it had been 
so stunted in its growth that it had never reached its fair de- 
velopment. Yet he felt sorry in his way for the“ young per- 
son,’’ who looked so deadly white, yet tried so hard not to 
make a scene; nay, when her two assistants came into the one 
little parlor, deported herself with steady composure; told 
them that she was obliged suddenly to go home, but would be 
back, if possible, the next morning. Then, in that orderly, 
accurate way which Peter Ascott could both understand and 
appreciate, she proceeded to arrange with them about the shop 
and the house in case she might be detained till Monday. 

“ You’re not a bad woman of business,” said he, with a 
patronizing air. “ This seems a tidy little shop; I dare say 
you’ll get on in it.” 

She looked at him with a bewildered air, and went on speak- 
ing to the young woman at the door, 

“ How much might your weekly receipts be in a place like 
this?' And what salary does Miss — Miss What’s-her-name 
give to each of you? You’re the head shop-woman, I sup- 
pose?” 

Hilary made no answer; she scarcely heard. All her mind 
was full of but one thing: “Never see Ascott anymore!” 
There came back upon her all the dreadful stories she had 
ever heard of lads who had committed forgery or some similar 
offense, and, in dread of punishment, had run away in despair, 
and never been heard of for years — come to every kind of 
misery, perhaps even destroyed themselves. The impression 
was so horribly vivid, that when, pausing an instant-m putting 
her books in their places, she heard the door-bell ring, Hilary 
with difficulty repressed a scream. 

But it was no messenger of dreadful tidings— it was only 
Elizabeth Hand; and the quiet fashion in which she entered 
showed Hilary at once that nothing dreadful hM happened at 
home. 

“ Oh, no, nothing has happened,” confirmed the girl. 
“ Only Miss Leaf sent me to see if you could come home to- 
night instead of to-morrow. She is quite well — that is, pretty 
well; but Mr. Leaf — ” 

HeSfe, catching sight of Miss Hilary’s visitor, Elizabeth 


JilSTRESS ANi) MAIt>. 


157 


stopped short. Peter Ascott was one of her prejudices. She 
determined in his presence to let out no more of the family 
affairs. 

On his part, Mr. Ascott had always treated Elizabeth as peo- 
ple hke him usually do treat servants, afraid to lose an inch of 
their dignity lest it should be an acknowledgment of equal 
birth and breeding with the class from which they are so ter- 
ribly ashamed to have sprung. He regarded her now with a 
lordly air. 

Young woman — I believe you are the young woman who 
this afternoon told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was a fib, 
of course.'’^ 

Elizabeth turned round indignantly. “ No, sir; I don^’t tell 
fibs. He was out. 

“ Did you give him my message when he came in.^^^ 

‘‘Yes, sir. 

“ And what did he say, eh?^^ 

“ Nothing. 

This was the literal fact; but there was something behind 
which Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of communi- 
cating. In fact, she set herself, physically and mentally,* in 
an attitude of dogged resistance to any pumping of Mr. Ascott; 
for though, as she had truly said, nothing special had hap- 
pened, s& felt sure that he was at the bottom of something 
which had gone wrong in the household that afternoon. 

It was this. When Ascott returned, and she told him of his 
godfather^’s visit, the young man had suddenly tuimed so 
ghastly pale that she had to fetch him a glass of water, and 
his aunt Johanna — Miss Selina was out — ^liad to tend him and 
soothe him for several minutes before he was right again. 
When at last he seemed returning to his natural self, he looked 
wildly up at his aunt, and clung to her in such an outburst of 
feeling, that Elizabeth had thought it best to slip out of the 
room. It was tea-time, but still she waited outside for half an 
hour or longer, when she gently knocked, and after a minute 
or two Miss Leaf came out. There seemed nothing wrong, at 
least not. much — ^not more than Elizabeth had noticed many 
and many a time after talks between Ascott and his aunts. 

“ ril take in the tea myself,"' she said; “ for I want you to 
start at once for Kensington to fetch Miss Hilary. Don't 
frighten her — mind that, Elizabeth. Say I am much as usual 
myself, but that Mr. Leaf is hot quite well, and I think she 
might do him good. Eemember the exact words. " 

Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurately if 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


158 

Mr. Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in that 
authoritative manner. Now, she resolutely held her tongue. 

Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to cring- 
ing, frightened, or impertinent servants, but tins was a phase 
of the species with which he was totally unfamihar. The girl 
was neither sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite independent; 
afraid neither of her mistress, nor of himself. He was sharp 
enough to see that whatever he wanted to get out of Elizabeth 
must be got in another way. 

“ Come, my wench, you^d better tell; itTl be none the worse 
for you, and it sha'nT harm the young fellow,- though I dare 
say he has paid you well for holding your tongue.'’^ 

‘‘ About what, sir?^^ 

‘‘Oh! you know what happened when you told him I had 
called, eh? Servants get to know all about their master's 
affairs." 

“ Mr. Leaf isn't my master, and his affairs are nothing to 
me; I don't pry into 'em," replied Elizabeth. “ If you want 
to know anything, sir, hadn't you better ask himself? He's 
at home to-night. I left liim and my missus going to their 
tea." 

“ Left them at home, and at tea?" 

“ Yes, Miss Hilary. " 

It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must have 
come. Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott 
had found him out; he must have confessed all to his aunt, or 
Johanna would never have done two things which her sister 
knew she strongly disliked — sending Elizabeth wandering 
through London at night, and fetching Hilary home before 
the time. Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea! 

Perhaps, after all, the blow had riot been so dreadful. 
Johanna saw comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose in 
Hilary also; visions of the poor sinner sitting “ clothed and in 
his right mind," contrite and humbled; comforted by them 
all with the inexpressible tenderness with which we yearn over 
one who “ was dead and is alive again, was lost, and is found;" 
helped by them all in the way that women — some wqmen espe- 
cially, and these were of them — seem formed to help the erring 
and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been un- 
fortimate. 

Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foohsh of 
them, ignorant women that . they were, to suppose that seven- 
teen years of the most careful bringing up could, with his 
tentperament, stand against the countless dangers of London 
life; of any life where a young man is left to himself in a 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 159 

great town, with his temptations so many and his power of 
resistance so small. 

And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must 
have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented 
of for the rest of his days.. Nay, in the strange way in which 
our sins and mistakes are made not only the whips to scourge 
us, but the sicknesses out of which we often come — suffering 
and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and fresh, and sound — who 
could tell but that this grave fault, this actual guilt, the climax 
of so many lesser errors, might not work out in the end As- 
cott^s complete reformation? 

So, in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we be- 
gin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray 
breaking tlirough the darkness, Hilaiy composed herself, at 
least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go down-stairs, 
and she would be ready directly. 

I think it is the best thing I can do — to go home at once,^^ 
she said. 

‘‘ Certainly, my dear,^^ replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered 
by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of 
his own exceeding generosity. “And, pray, don^t disturb 
yourselves. Tell your sister from me — your sister Selina, I 
mean — that I overlook everything on condition that you keep 
him out of my sight — ^that young blackguard 

“ DonT, donT!^^ cried Hilary, piteously. 

“ Well, I wonT, though it^s his right name — a fellow who 
could — Look you. Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me 
to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with, I did bury her, 
and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though he 
had no claim upon me except that he came from Stowbury. 
And I stood godfather to the child, and I"ve done my duty by 
him. But mark my words, what^s bred in the bone will come 
in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and heTl die in a 
prison.^'’ 

“ God forbid said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt 
the strong conviction,* that whatever his father had been, or 
his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till she was dead, 
Ascott could not have lived all these years of his childhood 
and early boyhood with his three aunts at Stowbury without 
gaining at least some good, which might counteract the heredi- 
tary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, even as hereditary 
disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and careful 
3'earing in a new generation. 

“ Well, ITl not say any more,^'^ continued Peter Ascott; 
“ only, the sooner the young fellow takes himself off the bet- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


160 

ter. He'll only plague you aU. How can you send out for a 

cab for me?" •, .i j 

Hilary mecbanically rang the bell and gave the order. 

I"ll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you 
the expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by 

omnibus?" , i i j. i. 

Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except 
that it was a declining of all these benevolent attentions. At 
last she got Mr. Ascott outside the street door, and, returning, 
put her hand to her head with a moan. 

‘‘ Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that!" 

“ Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?" 

‘‘No." 

“ Then I don't want you. to know. And you must never 
try to find it out; for it is a secret that ought to be kept strict- 
ly within the family. Are you to be trusted?" 

“ Yes, Miss Hilary." 

“ Now get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go 
home." 

They walked down the gas-lighted Kensington High Street, 
Hilary taking her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. 
As she sat in the dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look 
things in the face, and form some definite plan; but the noisy 
rumble at once dulled and confused her faculties. She felt 
capable of no consecutive thought, but found herself stupidly 
watching the two lines of faces, wondering, absently, what sort 
of people they were; what were their lives and histories; and 
whether they all had, like herself, their wn personal burden 
of woe. Which was, alas! the one fact that never need be 
doubted in this world. 

It was nigh upon eleven o'clock when Hilary knocked at the 
door of No. 15. , ^ 

Miss Leaf opened it; but for the first time in her life she 
had no welcome for her child. . 

“ Is it Ascott? ■ I thought it was Ascott," she cried, peering 
eagerly up* and down the street. 

‘‘ He is gone out, then? When did he go?" asked Hilary, 
feeling her heart turn stone-cold. 

“ Just after Selina came in. She — she vexed inm. But he 
can not be long. Is not that man he?" 

And just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, Johanna 
stepped dut into the cold, damp night, and strained her eyes 
into the darkness; but in vain. 

“ I'll walk round the Crescent once, and may be I shall find 
him. Only go in, Johanna." 


HISTRESS AND MAID. 


161 

Alul Hilary was away again into the dark, walking raihdly, 
less with the hope of finding Ascott than to get time to calm 
herself, so as to meet, and help her sisters to meet, this worst 
depth of their calamity; for something warned her that this 
last desperation of a weak nature is more to be dreaded than 
any overt obstinacy of a strong one. She had a conviction 
that Ascott never would come home. 

After awhile they gave up waiting and watching at the front 
door, and- shut themselves up in the parlor. The first ex- 
planation past, even Selina ceased talking; and they sat to- 
gether, the three women, dping . nothing, attempting to do 
nothing, only listening; tliinking every sound was a step on the 
pavement or a knock at the door. Alas! what would they not 
have given for the fiercest knock, the most impatient, angry 
footstep, if only it had been their boy^s? 

About one o^clock Selina had to be put to bed in strong 
hysterics. She had lashed her nephew with her bitter tongue 
till he had rushed out of the house, declaring that none of 
them should ever see his face again. Now she reproached her- 
self as bemg the cause of all, and fell into an agony of remorse, 
which engrossed her sisters’ whole care; until, her violent 
emotion having worn itself out, she went to sleep, the oidy one 
who did sleep in that miserable family. 

For Elizabeth also, having been sent to bed hours before, 
was found by Miss Hilary sitting on the kitchen stairs, about 
four in the morning. Her mistress made no attempt at re- 
proach, but brought her into the parlor to share the silent 
watch, never broken except to make up the fire or light a fresh 
candle; till candles burned up, and shutters were opened, and 
upon their great calamity stared the broad unwelcome day. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Missing ” — Lost ” — ‘‘ To—” — all the initials of the 
alphabet — we read these sort of advertisements in the news- 
papers; and unless there happens to be in them something in- 
tensely pathetic, comical, or horrible, we think very little 
about them. Only those who have undergone all that such an 
advertisemer.1^ implies, can understand its depth of misery: the 
sudden missing of the person out of the home-circle, whether 
going away in anger or driven away by terror or disgrace; the 
hour after hour and day after day of agonized suspense; the 
self-reproach, real or imaginary, lest anything might have 
been said or done that was not said or done — anything pre- 
yented that was not prevented; the gnawing remorse for some 
a 


m 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


cruel, or careless, or bitter word, that could so easily liave been 
avoided. 

Alas! if people could only be made to feel that every word, 
every action carries with it the weight of an' eternity; that the 
merest chance may make something said or done q^uite unpre- 
meditatedly, in vexation, sullenness, or spite, the Iasi action, 
the last word; which may grow into an awful remembrance, 
rising up between them and the irredeemable past, and blacken- 
ing the future for years ! 

Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had committed 
suicide, and that she had been the cause of it. This conviction 
she impressed incessant^ on her two sisters as they waited upon 
her, or sat talking by her bedside during that long Saturday, 
when there was nothing else to be done. 

That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be done. 
They had not the slightest clew to Ascott^s haunts or associates. 
With the last lingering of honest shame, or honest respect for 
his aunts, he had kept all these things to himself. To search 
for him in wide London was altogether impossible. 

Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary— one, to go and 
consult Miss Balquidder; the other— which came into her mind 
from some similar case she had heard of — to set on foot in- 
quiries at all police-stations. But the first idea was soon re- 
jected: only at the last extremity could she make patent the 
family misery— the family disgrace. To the second, similar 
and even stronger reasons applied. There was something 
about the cool, matter-of-fact, business-like act of setting a 
detective officer to hunt out their nephew from which these 
poor women recoiled. Besides, impressed as he was — he had 
told his aunt Johanna so — with the relentlessness of Mr. As- 
cott, might not the chance of his discovering that he was 
hunted drive him to desperation? 

Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in that. 
When Selina painted horrible pictures of his throwing himself 
off Waterloo Bridge; or being found hanging to a tree in one 
of the parks; or locking himself in a hotel bed-chamber and 
blowing out his brains, her younger sister only laughed— 
laughed as much as she could — if only to keep Johanna quiet. 

Yet she herself had few fears; for she knew that Ascott was, 
in a sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so disliked phys- 
ical pain, physical unpleasantness of all kinds. She felt sure 
he would stop short, even with the razor or the pistol in his 
hand, rather than do a thing so very disagreeable. 

Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters sat 
together, hour, after hour, in a stillness almost like that when 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


163 


there is a death in the house, these morbid terrors took a 
double size. Hilary ceased to treat them as ridiculous impossi- 
bilities, but began to argue them out rationally. The mere 
act of doing so made her recoil; for it seemed an acknowl- 
edgment 'that she was fighting, not with chimeras, but realities. 

It is twenty-four hours since he went,^^ she reasoned. If 
he had done anything desperate he would have done it at once, 
and we should have heard of it long before noAv; ill news 
always travels fast. Besides, his name was marked on all his 
clothes in full. I did it myself. And his coat-pockets were 
always stuffed with letters; he used to cram them in as soon 
as he got them, you know. 

And at this small remembrance of one of his ‘‘ ways,^^ even 
though it was an unkind way, and had caused them many a 
pain, from the want of confidence it showed, his poor, fond 
aunts turned aside to hide their starting tears. The very 
phrase he used to seemed such an unconscious admission 
that his life with them was over and done — that he never would 
either please them or vex them any more. 

Yet they took care that during the whole day ever3rthing 
should be done as if he were expected minute by minute : that 
Elizabeth should lay the fourth knife and fork at dinner, the 
fourth cup and saucer at tea. Elizabeth, who throughout had 
faithfully kept her pledge; who went about silently and un- 
observantly, and by every means in her power put aside the 
curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to what could be the reason that her 
lodgers had sat up all night, and what on earth had become of 
young Mr. Leaf. 

After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to bed; 
and then Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set herself to 
consider how long this dreadful quietness was to last, whether 
nothing could be done. She could endure whatever was in- 
evitable, but it was against her nature as well as her conscience 
to sit down tamely, to endure anything whatsoever till it did 
become inevitable. 

In the first place, she determined on that which a certain 
sense of honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he 
come home, had hitherto prevented — the examining of As- 
cott^s room, drawers, clothes, and papers. It was a very dreary 
business — almost like doing the like to a person who was dead, 
only without the sad sanctity that belongs to the dead, whose 
very errors are forgotten and forgiven, who can neither suffer 
nor nnake others Suffer any more. 

Many things she found, and more she guessed at — things 
which stabbed her to the heart, things that she never told, not 


164 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


even to Johanna; but she found no clew whatever to Ascott s 
whereabouts, intentions, or connections. One thing, however, 
struck her-— that most of his clothes, and all his somewhat ex- 
tensive stock of jewelry, were gone; everything, in short, that 
could be convertible into money. It was evident that his flight, 
sudden as it was, had been premeditated as at least a possi- 
bility. . . 

Tliis so far was satisfactory. It took away the one hamitmg 
fear of his committing suicide, and made it likely that he was 
still lingering about, hiding from justice and Mr. Ascott, or 
perhaps waiting for an opportunity to escape from England — 
from the fear that his godfather, even if not prosecuting him, 
had the power and doubtless the will completely to crush his 
future, wherever he was known. . 

Where could he go? His aunt tried to think over every 
word he had ever let fall about America, Australia, or any 
other place to which the hopeless outlaws of this country fly; 
but she could recollect nothing to enable her to form any con- 
clusion. One thing only she was sure of — that if once he went 
away, his own words would come true; they would never see 
his face again. The last tie, the last constraint that bound 
him to home and a steady, righteous life would be broken: he 
would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on every wave 
of circumstance — what he called circumstance— till Heaven 
only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in 
what forlorn and far-off seas his ruined life might go down. 
He, Ascott Leaf, the last of the name and family. 

‘‘ It can not be; it shall not be!^^ cried Hilary. A sharp, 
bitter cry of resistance to the death; and her heart seemed to 
go out to the wretched boy, and her hands to clutch at him, as 
if he were drowning, and she were the only one to save him. 
How could she do it? 

If she could only get at him by word or letter! But that 
seemed impossible, until, turning over scheme after scheme, 
she suddenly thought of the one which so many people had tried 
in similar circumstances, and which she remembered they had 
talked over and laughed over, they and Ascott, one Simday 
evening not so very long ago. This was — a '^^Times^^ ad- 
vertisement. 

The difficulty how to word it, so as to catch his attention 
and yet escape publicity, was very great, especially as his 
initials were so common. Hundreds of ‘‘A. L. '’s might be 
wandering away from home, to whom all that siie dared say to 
call Ascott back would equally apply. At last a bright thought 
struck her. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


165 


‘‘A. (with a small 1) “ will be quite safe wherever 

found. Come. Saturday. 15. 

As she wrote it — this wretched double-entendre — she was 
seized with that sudden sense of the ludicrous which sometimes 
intrudes in such a ghastly fashion in the very midst of great 
misery. She burst into uncontrollable laughter, fit after fit; 
so violent that Elizabeth, who came in by chance, was terrified 
out of her wits, and, kneeling beside her mistress, implored her 
to be quiet. At last the paroxysm ended in complete ex- 
haustion. The tension of the last twenty^our hours had given 
way, and Hilary knew her strength was gone. Yet the ad- 
vertisement ought to be taken to the “ Times office that very 
night, in order to be inserted without fail on Monday morning. 

There was but one person whom she could trust — Elizabeth. 

She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, 
rubbing her feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in the 
quiet way of one well used to nursing, who can find out how 
the sufferer is without “ fussing with questions. She noticed,.^ 
probably because she had seen Httle of her of late, a curious 
change in Elizabeth. It must have been gradual, but yet its 
result had never been so apparent before. Her brusqueness 
had softened down, and there had come into her and shone out 
of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person, that 
beautiful, intangible something, common ahke to peasant and 
queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both — womanliness. 
Added thereto was the gentle composure of mien which almost 
invariably accompanied ifc, which instinctively makes you feel 
that in great things or small, whatever the woman has to do, 
she will do it in the womanliest, wisest, and best way. 

So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, and 
then explained to her the errand upon which she wished to 
send her. 

Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the advertise- 
ment to read, and told her what she wished done with it. And 
Elizabeth, on her part, asked no questions, but simply listened 
and obeyed. 

After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa passive and mo- 
tionless. Her strength and activity seemed to have collapsed 
at once into that heavy quietness which comes when one has 
endured to the utmost limit of endurance, when one feels as if 
to speak a word or to lift a finger would be as much as life was 
Avorth. 

“ Oh, if I could only go to sleep!"' was all she thought. • 

By and by sleep did come, and she was taken far away out 
of these miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams, that 


166 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


we SO seldom dream about any grief that oppresses us at the 
time, but generally of something quite different, she thought 
she was in some known unknown land, lovely and beautiful, 
with blue hills rising in the distance, and blue seas creeping 
and curling on to the shore. On this shore she was walking 
with Eobert Lyon, just as he used to be, with his true face and 
honest voice. He did not talk to her much; but she felt him 
there, and knew they had but “ one heart between them."^ A 
heart which had never once swerved, either from the other; a 
heart whole and sound, into which the least unfaith had never 
come— that had never known, or recognized even as a possi- 
bility, the one first doubt, the ominous 

“ Little rift within the lute, 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And, ever widening, slowly silence all.” 

Is it ever so in this world? Does God ever bring the faith- 
ful man to the faithful woman, and make th§m love one an- 
other with a righteous, holy, persistent tenderness, which dare 
look in His face, nor be ashamed; which sees in this life only 
the beginning of the life to come; and in the closest, most 
passionate human love something to bo held with a loose hand, 
something frail as glass and brittle as straw, unless it is per- 
fected and sanctified by the love divine? 

Hilary at least believed so. And when, at Ebzabeth^’s knock, 
she woke, with a start, and saw — not the sweet sea-shore and 
Eobert Lyon, but the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the 
fire, she thanked God that her dream was not all a dream — 
that, sharp as her misery was, it did not touch this — the love 
of her heart: she believed in Eobert Lyon still. 

And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Elizabeth 
how she had managed, and whether the advertisement would 
be sure to be m on Monday morning. 

Yes, Miss Hilary; it is sure to be all right. 

And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy way, 
as if she had something to tell, which was the fact. 

Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in her 
monotonous life; it brightened her eyes, and flushed her cheeks, 
and made her old nervousness of manner return. More espe- 
cially as she was somewhat perplexed, beiug divided in her 
muid between the wish she had to tell lier mistress everytliing, 
and the fear to trouble her, at this troublous time, with any 
small matter that merely concerned herself. 

The matter was this. When she had given in her advertise- 
nient at the “ Times office, and was standing behind the 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


167 


counter waiting for her change and receipt, there stood beside 
her a young man, also waiting. She had hardly noticed lum, 
till on his talking to the clerk about some misprint in his ad- 
vertisement, apparently one of the great column of ‘‘Want 
Places,"" her ear was caught by the unmistakable Stowbury 
accent. 

It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, 
and to Elizabeth"s tenacious nature home in absence had gained 
an additional charm,' had grown to be the one place in the 
world about which her affections clung. In these dreary wilds 
of London, to hear a Stowbury tongue, to catch sight of a Stow- 
bury person, or even one who might know Stowbury, made her 
heart leap up with a bound of joy. She turned suddenly, and 
looked intently at the young man, or rather the lad, for he 
seemed a mere lad, small, shght, and whiskerless. 

“ Well, miss, I hope you"ll know me again next time,"" said 
the young fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw that he was 
neither so young nor so simple as she had at first thought. 
She drew back, very much ashamed, and coloring deeply. 

Kow if Elizabeth ever looked anjrthing like comely, it was 
when she blushed; for she had the delicate skin peculiar to the 
yomig women of her district, and when the blood rushed 
through it, no cheek of lady fair ever assumed a brighter rose. 
That, or the natural vanity of man in being noticed by wom- 
an, caught iJie youth"s attention. 

“ Come, now, miss, don"t be shy or offended. Perhaps I"m 
going your way? Would you like company home?"" 

“No, thank you,"" said Elizabeth, with great dignity. 

“Well, won"t you even tell a fellow your name? Mine"s 
Tom Cliff e, and I live — "" 

“ Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come 
from Stowbury?"" 

And all Elizabeth"s heart was in her eyes. 

As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. 
She hked few people, but those she did like she held very fast. 
Almost the only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, 
had been the little boy whom she had snatched from under the 
horse"s heels; and though he was rather a scapegrace, and cared 
little for her, and his mother was a decidedly objectionable 
woman, she had clung to them both firmly till she lost sight 
of them. 

Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in 
this London stranger the little lad whose hfe she had saved — a 
lad, too, from her beloved Stowbury — without a certain 


168 


KISTIIESS ANT) MAID. 


amount of emotion, at which the indiYiclual in question broadly 
stared. 

‘‘Bless your heart, I am Tommy Olilfe from Stowbury, 
sure enough. Who are you?^^ 

“ Elizabeth Hand.'' ^ 

Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared 
he should have known her anywhere, and had never forgotten 
her — ^never ! How far that was true or not, he certainly looked 
as if it were; and two great tears of pleasure dimmed Eliza- 
beth's kind eyes. 

“ YouVe grown a man now. Tommy, said she, looking at 
him with a sort of half-maternal pride, and noticing his re- 
markably handsome and intelligent face; so intelligent that it 
would have attracted notice, though it was set upon broad, 
stoopmg shoulders, and a small, slight body. “ Let me see — 
how old are you?^^ 

“ Fm nineteen, I think. 

“ And I^m two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing 
said Elizabeth with a smile. 

Then she asked after Mrs. CMe, but got only the brief 
answer, “ Mother ^s dead,^^ given in a tone as if no more in- 
quiries would be welcome. His two sisters, also, had died of 
■fyphus in one week, and Tom had been “ on his own hook,^^ 
as he expressed it, for the last three years. 

He was extremely frank and confidential; told how he had . 
begun life as a printer's “ devil, afterward become a compos- 
itor, and his health failing, had left the trade, and gone as a 
servant to a literary gentleman. 

“ An uncommonly clever fellow is master; keeps his carriage, 
and has dukes to dinner, all out of his books. May be youwe 
heard of them, Elizabeth?" and he named a few, in a patron- 
izing way; at which Elizabeth smiled, for she knew them well. 
But she nevertheless regarded with a certain awe the servant 
of so great a man, and “ little Tommy Cliffe took a new 
importance in her eyes. 

Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an omni- 
bus, she could not help perceiving what a sharp little fellow lie 
had grown into; how, like many another printer’s boy, he had 
caught the infiuence of the atmosphere of letters, and was 
educated — self-educated, of course — to a degree far beyond his 
position. When she looked at him, and listened to him, 
Elizabeth involuntarily thought of Benjamin Franklin, and of 
many more who had raised themselves from the ink-pot and 
the compositor’s desk to fame and eminence, and she fancied 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


160 

that such might be the lot of '‘little Tommy Cliffe/' Why 
not? If so^ how excessively proud she should be! 

For the moment she had forgotten her errand; forgotten 
even Miss Hilary., It was not till Tom Oliffe asked her where 
she lived that she suddenly recollected her mistress might- not 
like, under present circumstances, that their abode or anything 
concerning them should be known to a Stowbury person. 

It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad 
again; have liked to talk over with him Stowbury things and 
Stowbury people; but she felt she ought not, and she would 
not. 

" Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as well 
— at least till I speak to my mistress. I never had a visitor 
before, and my mistress might not like it.^^ 

" Ho followers allowed, eh?^^ 

Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Oliffe as her 
" follower seemed so very funny. 

So she bade him good-bye; having, thanks to his gay frank- 
ness, been made acquainted with all about him, but leaving 
him in perfect, ignorance concerning herself and her mistress. 
She only smiled when he declared contemptuously, and with 
rather a romantic emphasis, that he would hunt her out, 
though it were half over London. 

This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it 
seemed very little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather 
indifferently, trying hard to remember who Tommy Oliffe was, 
and to take an interest in him because he came from Stow- 
bury. But Stowbury days were so far. off now — with such a 
gulf of pain between. 

Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred 
to Elizabeth. 

" The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope? You did 
not tell him about us?^^ 

" I told him nothing, said Elizabeth, speaking softly, and 
looking down. " I did not mention even anybody's name.^-^ 

" That was right: thank you.’^ 

But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Elizabeth 
knew too, the thing for which she thanked her; and that not 
to mention Ascott^s name was the greatest kindness the faith- 
ful servant could show toward the family. 


170 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


CHAPTER XX. 

’ Ascott Leaf never came home. 

Day after day appeared the advertisement, sometimes slight- 
ly altered, as hope or fear suggested; but no word, no letter, 
no answer of any kind reached the anxious women. 

By and by, moved by their distress, or perhaps feeling that 
the scapegrace would be safer got rid of if foimd and dis- 
patched abroad in some decent manner, Mr. Ascott himself 
took measures for privately continuing the search. Every 
outward-bound sliip was examined; every hospital visited; 
every case of suicide investigated; hut in vain. The unhappy 
yomig man had disappeared, suddenly and completely, as 
many another has disappeared, out of the home-circle, and 
been never heard of more. 

It is difficult to understand how a family can possibly bear 
such a sorrow did. we not know that many have had to bear it, 
and have borne it, with all its load of agonizing suspense, 
slowly dying hope, 

“ The hope that keeps alive despair,” 

settling down into a permanent grief, compared to which the 
grief for loss by death is light and endurable. 

The lieaf family went through all this. Was it better or 
worse for them that their anguish had to be secret? that there 
were no friends to pity, inquire, or console? that Johanna had 
to sit hour by hour and day by day in the solitary parlor, 
Selina having soon gone back to her old ways of gadding 
about "" and her marriage preparations; and that, hardest of 
all, Hilary had on the Monday morning to return to Kensing- 
ton, and work, work, work as nothing were amiss? 

But it was natural that all this should tell upon her; and 
one day Miss Balquidder said, alter a long covert observation 
of her face, ‘‘My dear, you look ilk Is there anything 
troubling you. My young people always tell- me their 
troubles, bodily or mental. I doctor both. ' 

“lam sure of it,"" said Hilary, with a sad smile, but entered 
into no explanation, and Miss Balquidder had the wise kindli- 
ness to inquire no further. Nevertheless, on some errand or 
other she came to Kensington nearly every evening, and took 
Hilary back with her to sleej) at No 15. 

“ Your sister Selina must wish to have you with her as mucli 
as possible till she is married,"" she said, as a reason for dorntr 
this. ^ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


171 


And Hilary acquiesced^ but silently, as we often do acquiesce 
in what ought to be a truth, but which we know to be the sad- 
dest, most j^ainful falsehood. 

For Selina, it became plain to see, was one of the family no 
more. After her first burst of self-reproachful grief she took 
Mr. Ascott^s view of her nephew’s loss — that it was a good 
riddance; went on calmly with her bridal preparations, and 
seemed only afraid lest anything should interfere to prevent 
her marriage. 

But the danger was apparently tided over. No news of 
Ascott came. Even the daily inquiries for him by his credit- 
ors had ceased. His aunt Selina was beginning to breathe 
freely, when, the morning before the wedding-day, as they 
were all sitting in the midst of white finery, but as sadly and 
silently as if it were a funeral, a person was suddenly shown in 
‘‘ on business. ” 

It was a detective ofiicer sent to find out from Ascott Leaf’s 
aunts whethef a certain description of him, in a printed hand- 
bill, was correct; for his principal creditor, exasperated, had 
determined on thus advertising him in the public papers as 
having absconded.” 

Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the little parlor the three aunts 
could not have been more utterly overwhelmed. They made 
no “ scene ” — a certain sense of pride kept these poor gentle- 
women from betraying their misery to a strange man; though 
he was a very civil man, and having delivered himself of his 
errand, like an automaton, sat looking into his hat, and taking 
no notice of aught around liim. He was accustomed to this 
sort of thing. 

Hilary was the first to’ recover herself. She glanced round 
at her sisters, but they had not a word to say. In any crisis of 
family difficulty they always left her to take the helm. 

Kapidly she ran over in her mind all the consequences that 
would arise from this new trouble — the publio disgrace; Mr. 
Ascott’s anger and annoyance — not that she cared much for this, 
except so far as it would affect Sehna; lastly, the death-blow it 
was to any possible hope of reclaiming the poor prodigal, who 
she did not believe was dead, but still fondly trusted would re- 
turn one day from his wanderings and his swine’s husks to have 
the fatted calf killed for him and glad tears shed over liim. 
But after being advertised as “ absconded,” Ascott never would, 
jiever could come home any more. 

Taking as cool and business-like a tone as she could, she re- 
turned the paper to the detective. 


172 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


This is a summary proceeding. Is there no way of avoid- 
ing it?^^ 

‘‘ One, miss/ ^ replied the man very respectfully. “ If the 
family would pay the debt. 

‘‘ Do you know how much it is?^^ 

“ Eighty pounds. 

^ ‘‘ AhV* 

That hopeless sigh of Johanna^s was sufficient answer, thougli 
no one spoke. 

But in desperate cases some women acquire a desperate 
courage, or rather it is less courage than faith — the faith 
which is said to ‘‘ remove mountains — the belief that to the 
very last there must be something to be done, and, if it can be 
done, they will have strength to do it. True, the mountain 
may not be removed, but the mere act of faith or courage 
sometimes teaches how to climb over it. 

‘‘ Very well. Take this paper back to your employer. He 
must be aware that his only chance of payment is^y suppress- 
ing it. If he will do that, in two days he shall hear from us, 
and we will make arrangements about paying the debt.’’^ 

Hilary said this to her sisters'’ utter astonisliment; so utter 
that they let her say it, and let the detective go away with a 
civil Good-moming,^^ before they could interfere or contra- 
dict by a word. 

Paying the debt! Hilary, what have you promised! It is 
an impossibility."’'’ ' " 

‘‘ Like the Frenchman's answer to his mistress — ‘ Madame, 
if it had been possible it would have been done already; if it is 
impossible, it shall be done. It shall, I say. / 

“ I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes,^^ said Selina, 
in her most querulous voice. 

‘‘ I^m not jesting. But where is the u‘se of sitting down to 
, moan! I mean what I say. The thing must be done.^^ 

Her eyes glittered — her small, red lips were set tightly to- 
gether. 

“ If it is not done, sisters — if his public disgrace is not 
prevented, donTyou see the result? Not as regards your mar- 
riage. Selina — the man must be a coward who would re- 
fuse to marry a woman he cared for, even though her nearest 
kinsman had been hanged at the Old Bailey — but Ascott him- 
self. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has done wickedly; 
but there is a dilference between a wicked act and a wicked 
nature. I mean to save him if I can.'’'’ 

How?^^ 

“ By saving his good name; by paying the debt.'^ 


Mistress and maid. 


173 


And where on earth shall you get the money 
I will go to Miss Balquidder and — 

Borrow it?^’ 

No, never! I would as soon think of stealing it/^ 

Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meant 
to ask Miss Balquidder to arrange for her with the creditor to 
pay the eighty pounds by certain weekly or monthly install- 
ments, to he deducted from her salaiy at Kensington. 

‘‘ It is not a very great favor to ask of her — merely that she 
should say, ‘ This young woman is employed by me; I believe 
her to be honest, respectable, and so forth; also, that when 
she makes a promise to pay, she will to the best of her power 
perform it.^ A character which is at present rather a novelty 
in the Leaf family. • 

Hilary!’^ 

‘‘ l am growing bitter, Johanna, I know I am. , Why should, 
we sutler so much? Why should we be always dragged down — 
down — in this way? Why should we never have any one to 
cherish and take care of us, like other women? Why — 

Miss Leaf laid her finger in her Childs’s bps — . 

Because it is the will of God. 

Hilary fiung herself on her dear old sister^s neck, and burst 
into tears. 

Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like, to help 
in paying the debt if Mr. Ascott had no objection. And then 
she turn^ back to her white splendors, and became absorbed 
in the aiinoyance of there being far too much clematis and far 
too little orange-blossom in the bridal bonnet — which it was 
now too late to change. A little, also, she vexed herself about 
the risk of confiding in Miss Balquidder, lest by any chance the 
story might get round to Bussell Square; and was urgent that 
at least nothing should be said or done until after to-morrow. 
She was determined to be married, and dreaded any slip be- 
tween the cup and the hp. 

But Hilary was resolute. I said that hi two days the 
matter should be arranged, and so it must be, or the man will 
tliink we too break our promises. 

“You can OiSsure him to the contrary, said Selina, with 
dignity. “ In fact, why caiiT you arrange with him without 
going at all to Miss Balquidder ?^^ 

Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary^s face. 

You forget. Miss Balquidder ^s honest name is his only guar- 
antee against the dishonesth of ours. 

“ Hilary, you disgrace us — disgrace me — speaking in such a 
way. . Are we not gentlewomen?’^ 


m 


MISTRESS AND MAlD. 


“ I don’t know, Selina. I don’t seem to know or to feel 
aiiytliing, except that I would live on bread and water in order 
to live peaceably and honestly. Oh! will it ever, ever be?” 

She walked, up and down the parlor, disarranging the wliite 
draperies which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for 
them and for her sister. Angry and miserable, with every 
nerve quivering, she was at war with the whole world. 

This feelmg lasted even when, after some discussion, she 
gained her point, and was on her way to call on Miss Balquid- 
der. She went round and round the square many times, try- 
ing to fix in her mind word for word what she meant to say; 
revealing no more of the family history than was absolutely 
necessary, and stating her business in the briefest, hardest, 
most matter-of-fact way — putting it as a transaction between 
. employer and employed, in which there was no more favor 
asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the 
sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by 
minute she felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and 
cold. 

‘‘This will never do. I shall be wicked by and by. I 
must go in and get it over.” 

Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, 
that there should have been that sudden change from the 
blighting weather outside to the warm, well-lighted room, 
where the good rich woman sat at her early and solitary tea. 

Very solitary it looked— the little table in the center of that 
large, handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one 
easy-chair. And as Hilary entered she noticed, amid all this 
comfort and luxury, the still, grave, almost sad expression 
which solitary people always get to wear. 

But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, 
and risen, smiling. ' ' 

‘"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! 
Just the day before the wedding, too, when you must be so 
busy! Sit down and tell me all about it. But first, my dear, 
how wet your boots are! Let me take them off at once. ” 

Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting 
theni on the tiny feet with her own hands. 

Hilary submitted — in truth, she was too much surprised to 
resist. 

Miss Balquidder had, like, most folk, her opinions or 

crochets ” as they might be — and one of them was, to keep 
her business and friendly relations entirely distinct and apart. 
Whenever she went to Kensington or her other establishments 
she was always emphatically ‘‘the mistress”— a kindly and 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


175 


even motherly mistress certainly, but still authoritative, decid- 
ed. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to treat all her em- 
ployes alike — making no step-hairns among them. Thus 
for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt 
herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book-keeper, doing her duty 
to Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor 
attaining any closer relation. 

But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden appa- 
rition of that young face at her lonely fireside. Miss Balquidder 
appeared quite different. 

A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. 
When the good woman rose up — after patting the little feet, 
and approving loudly of the woolen stockuigs — she saw that 
Hilary^s whole face was quivering with the effort to keep back 
her tears. 

There are some women of whom one feels by instinct that 
they were, as Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said of her- 
self, specially meant to be mothers. And though, in its 
strange providence. Heaven often denies the maternity, it can 
not, and does not mean to shut up the well-spring of that 
maternal passion — truly a passion to such women as these, 
almost as strong as the passion of love — but lets the stream, 
which might otherwise have blessed one child or one family, 
flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it goes. 

Iii a tone that somehow touched every fiber of Hilary^s 
heart. Miss Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair beside 
her own, 

^ ■ trouble. I saw it a week or two ago. 



CouldnT you say it out, and let me 


help you? You need not be afraid. I never tell anything, 
and everybody tells everything to me.'’^ 

That was true. Added to this said motherhness of hers. 
Miss Balquidder possessed that faculty, which some people 
have in a remarkable degree, and some — very good people too 
— are totally deficient in, of attracting confidence. The secret 
she had been trusted with, the romances she had been mixed 
up in, the quixotic acts she had been called upon to perform 
during her long life, would have made a novel — or several 
novels — such as no novelist could dare to write, for the public 
would condemn them as impossible and unnatural. But all 
this experience — though happily it could never be put into a 
\)ook — had given to the woman herself a view of human nature 
at 07i(ie so large, lenient, and just, that she was the best person 
jwssible to hear the strange and pitiful story of young Ascott 
Leaf. 


m 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have 
told very little, and yet Miss Balquidder -guessed it all. It did 
not appear to surprise or shock her. She neither began to 
question nor preach; she only laid her hand — her large, 
motherly, protecting hand, on the bowed head, saying 

“ How much you have suffered, my poor bairn 

The soft Scotch tone and word — the grave, quiet Scotch 
manner, implying more than it even expressed — was it won- 
derful if underlying as well as outside influences made Hilary 
completely give way? 

Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died wLen he was 
seventeen, but of whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, 
often saying that of all the ladies he had met with in the world 
there was none equal to her — the strong, tender, womanly peas- 
ant woman — reflned in mind, and word, and ways — though to 
the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and did the 
work of her cottage with her own hands. It seems as if that 
mother — toward whom Hilary^s fancy had clung, lovingly as a 
woman ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the 
man she loves — ^were speaking to her. now, comforting her and 
helping her — comfort and help that it would have been sweeter 
to receive from her than from any woman living. 

A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excite- 
ment it took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her 
knees, and hid her face in Miss Balquidder^s lap, sobbing 
aloud. 

The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way 
to yield to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman, 
she asked no questions, merely held the quivering hands and 
smoothed the throbbing head till composure returned. Some 
people have a magical, mesmeric power of soothing and con- 
trolling: it was hers. When she took the poor face between 
her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, There, 
■you are better now,^^ Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, 
nay, smilingly, and rose. 

“ Now, may I tell you my business 
Certainly, my dear. When one^s friends are in trouble, 
the last thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and 
inoan. Hid you come to ask my advice, or had you any defi- 
nite plan of your own?^ ’ 

I had. And Hilary told it. 

‘‘ A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it. 
But I, see two strong objections: first, whether it can be carried 
out; secondly, whether it ought. 

Hilary shrunk, sensitively. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


177 


Not on my account, my dear, but your own. I often see 
people making martyrs of themselves for some worthless char- 
acter on whom the sacrifice is utterly wasted. I object to this, 
as I would object to throwing myself or my friend into a blaz- 
ing house, unless I were morally certain there was a life to be 
saved. Is there in this case?'’^ 

I think there is! I trust in Heaven there is!^^ said Hilary, 
earnestly. 

There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Balquid- 
der^s countenance as she replied, “ Be it so: that is a matter 
on which no one can judge except yourself. But on the other 
matter you ask my advice, and I must give it. To maintain 
two ladies and pay a debt of eighty pounds out of one hundred 
a year is simply impossible. 

‘‘With Johanna^s income and mine it will be a hundred and 
twenty pounds and some odd shillings a year. 

“You accurate girl! But even with this it can not be done, 
unless you were to live in a manner so restricted in the com- 
monest comforts that at your sister’s age she would be sure to 
suffer. You must look on the question from all sides, my 
dear. You must be just to others as well as to that young 
man, who seems never to — But I will leave him unjudged.” 

They were both silent for a minute, then Miss Balquidder 
said: “ I feel certain there is but one rational way of accom- 
plishing the thing, if you are bent upon doing it, if your own 
judgment and conscience tell you it ought to be done.- Is it 
so?” 

“ Yes,” said Hilary, firmly. 

The old Scotswoman took her hand with a warm pressure. 
“ Very well. I don’t blame you. I might have done the same 
myself. Now to my plan. Miss Leaf, have you known me 
long enough to confer on me the benediction — one of the few 
that we rich folk possess — ‘ It- is more blessed to give than to 
receive?’ ” 

“ I don’t quite understand.” 

“ Then allow me to explain. I happen to know this creditor 
of your nephew’s. He being a tailor and an outfitter, we have 
had dealings together in former times, and I know him to be a 
hard man, an unprincipled man, such a one as no young 
woman should have to do with, even in business relations. 
’lY be in his power, as you would be for some years if your 
scheme of gradual payment were carried out, is the last tiling 
I should desire for you. Let me suggest another way. Take 
me for your creditor instead of him. Pay him at once, and I 
will write you a check for the amount. 


178 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


The thing was put so delicately, in such an ordinary manner, 
as if it were a mere business arrangement, that at first Hilary 
hardly perceived all it implied. When she did— when she 
foimd that it was in plain terms a gift or loan of eighty pounds 
offered by a person almost a stranger, she was at first quite be- 
wildered. Then (ah! let us not blame her if she- carried to a 
morbid excess that noble, independence which is the foundation 
of all true dignity in man or woman) she’ shrunk back into her- 
self, overcome with annoyance and shame. At last she forced 
herself to say, though the words came out rather coldly, 

“You are very good, and I am exceedingly obliged to you; 
but I never borrowed money in my life. It is quite impossi- 

“ Very well; I can understand your feelings. I beg your 
pardon,'’^ replied Miss Balquidder, also somewhat coldly. 

They sat silent and awkward, and then the elder lily took 
out a pencil and began to make calculations in her memoran- 
dum-book. 

“ I am reckoning what is the largest sum per month that you 
could reasonably be expected to spare, and how you may make the 
most of what remains. Are you aware that London lodgings 
are very expensive? I am thinking that if you were to ex- 
change out of the Kensington shop into another I have at 
Kichmond, I could offer you the first floor above it for much 
less rent than you pay Mrs. Jones, and you could have your 
sister living with you. 

“ Ah! that would make us both so much happier! How 
good you are!^^ 

“ You will see I only wish to help you to help yom'self, not to 
put you under any obhgation, though I can not see anything 
so very terrible in your being slightly indebted to an old 
woman who has neither chick nor cMd, and is at perfect lib- 
erty to do what she likes with her own. 

There was a pathos in the tone which smote Hilary into 
quick contrition. 

“Forgive me! But I have such a horror of borrowing 
money — you must know why after what I have told you of our 
family. You must sifrely understand — 

“I do, fully; but there are limits even to independence. 
A person who, for his own pleasure, is ready to take money 
from anybody and everybody, witliout the sliglitest prospect or 
mtention of returnmg it, is quite different from a friend who 
in a case of emergency accepts lielp from another friend, being 
ready and willing to take every means of repayment, as I knew 
you were, and meant you to be. I meant, as you suggested. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


m 

to stop out of your salary so much ])er mpnth till I had my 
eighty pounds safe back again/ ^ 

“But suppose you never had it back? I am young and 
strong; still I might fall ill — I might die_, and you never be re- 
paid. 

“ Yes, I should/^ said Miss Balquidder, with a serious smile. 
“You forget, my dear bairn, ‘ Inasmuch as ye have done it to 
one of these little ones, ye have done it unto :me. ^ ^ He that 

giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. ^ I have lent Him a 
good deal at different times, and He has always paid me back 
with usury. 

There was something at once solemn and a httle sad in the 
way the old lady spoke. Hilary forgot her own side of the 
subject — ^her pride, her humiliation. 

^ ‘ But do you not think. Miss Balquidder, that one ought to 
work on, struggle on, to the last extremity, before one accepts 
an obligation, most of all a money obligation ?^^ 

“ I do, as a general principle. Yet money is not the great- 
est thing in this world, that a pecuniary debt should be the 
worst to bear. And sometimes one of the kindest acts you can 
do to a fellow-creature — one that touches and softens his heart, 
nay, perhaps wins it to you for life, is to accept a favor from 
him.^’ 

Hilary made no reply. 

“ I speak a little from experience. I have not had a very 
happy life myself — at least most people would say so if they 
knew it; but the Lord has made it up to me by giving me the 
means of bringing happiness, in money as well as other ways, 
to other people. Most of us have our favorite luxuries; this is 
mine. I like to do people good; I like, also— though may be 
that is a mean weakness — to feel that. I do it. If all whom I 
have been made instrumental in helping had said to me, as 
you have done, ‘ I will not be helped, I will not be made 
happy, ^ it would have been rather hard for me. 

And a smile, haK humorous, half sad, came over the hard- 
featured face, spiritualizing its whole expression. 

Hilary wavered. She compared her own life, happy still, 
and hopeful, for all its cares, with that of this lonely woman, 
whose only blessing was her riches, except the generous heart 
which sanctified them and made them such. Humbled, nay, 
ashamed, she took and kissed the kindly hand wliich had suc- 
cored so many, yet which, in the inscrutable mystery of 
Providence, had been left to go down to the grave alone; 
jnissing all that is personal, dear, and precious to a woman’s 


180 


MISTKESS AKD MAID. 


heart, and getting instead only what Hilary now gave her — the 
half-sweet, half -bitter payment of gratitude. 

‘‘ Well, my bairn, what is to he done?'’'’ 

“ I will do whatever you think right, murmured Hilary. 


CHAPTER XXL 

It was not a cheerful morning on which to be married. A 
dense, yellow, London fog, the like of which the Misses Leaf 
had never yet seen, penetrated into every corner of the parlor 
at Xo. 15, where they were breakfasting drearily by candle- 
iight, all in their wedding attire. They had been up since six 
in the morning, and Elizabeth had dressed her three mistresses 
one after the other, taking exceeding pleasure in the perform- 
ance; for she was still little more than a girl, to whom a wed- 
ding was a wedding, and this was the first she had ever had to 
do with in her life. 

True, it disappointed her in some things. ^ She was a little 
surprised that last evening had passed off just like all other 
evenings. The interest and bustle of packing soon subsided — 
the packing consisting only of the traveling trunk, for the rest 
of the trousseau went straight to Russell Square, every means 
having been taken to ignore the very existence of Xo 15 ; and 
then the three ladies had supper as usual, and went to bed at 
their customary hour, without any special demonstration of 
emotion or affection. To Elizabeth this was strange. She had 
not yet learned the unspeakable bitterness of a parting where 
nobody has any grief to restrain. 

On a wedding morning, of course, there is no time to be 
spared for sentiment. The principal business appeared to be 
■ — dressing. Mr. Ascott had insisted on doing his part in 
making his new connections appear respectable ^'’ at his 
marriage, and for Selina^ s sake they had consented. Indeed, 
it was inevitable: they had no money whatever to clothe them- 
selves withal. They must either have accepted Mr. Ascotf’s 
gifts — in which, to do him justice, he was both thoughtful and 
liberal — or they must have stayed away from the wedding 
altogether, which they did not like to do ‘‘ for the sake of the 
family.'’^ 

So, with a sense of doing their last duty by the sister, who 
would be, they felt, henceforward a sister no more. Miss Leaf 
attired herself in her violet silk and white China shawl, and 
Miss Hilary put on her silver-gray poplin, with a cardinal 
cape, as was then in fasliion, trimmed with white swan'’s-down. 
Jt was rather an elderly costume for a bride-maid; bu^ she was 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


281 


determined to dress warmly, and not risk, in muslins and 
laces, the health which to her now was money, life — nay, 
honor. 

For Ascott^s creditor had been already paid: Miss Balquidder 
never let grass grow under her feet. \Vhen Hilary returned to 
her sisters that day there 'vVas no longer any fear of public ex- 
posure; she had the receipted bill in her hand, and she was 
Miss Balquidder^s debtor to the- extent of eighty pounds. 

But it was no debt of disgrace or humiliation, nor did she 
feel it as such. She had learned the lesson which the large- 
hearted rich can always teach the poor, that, while there is 
sometimes, to some people, no more galling chain, there is to 
others — and these are the highest natures too — no more firm 
and sacred bond than gratitude. But still the debt was there: 
and:' Hilary would never feel quite easy till it was paid — in 
money at least. The generosity she never wished to repay. 
She would rather feel it wrapping her round, like an arm that 
was heavy only through its exceeding tenderness, to the end of 
her days. 

Nevertheless, she had arranged that there was to be a regular 
monthly deduction from her salary; and how, by retrench- 
ment, to make this monthly payment as large as she could 
was a question which had occupied herself and Johanna for a 
good wliile after they retired to rest, for there was no time to 
be lost. Mrs. Jones must be given notice to; and there was 
another notice to be given, if the Eichmond plan were carried 
out; another sad retrenchment, foreboding which, when Eliza- 
beth brought up supper. Miss Hilary could hardly look the girl 
in the face, and, when she bade her good-night, had felt almost 
like a secret conspirator. 

For she knew that, if the money to clear this debt Avas to be 
saved, they must part with Elizabeth. 

No doubt the personal sacrifice would be considerable, for 
Hilary would have to do the Avork of their two rooms with her 
own hands, and give up a hundred little comforts in Avhich 
Elizabeth, now become a most clever and efficient servant, had 
made herself necessary to them both. But the two ladies did 
not think of that, at the moment; they only thought of the 
pain of parting with her. They thought of it sorely, even 
though she was but a servant, and there was a family parting 
close at hand. Alas! people must take what they earn. It 
was a melancholy fact that, of the two impending losses, the 
person they should miss most would be, not their sister, but 
Elizabeth. 

Both regrets combined made them sit at the breakfast-tabl^ 


182 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


— the last meal they should ever take together as a family — 
sad and sorry^, speaking about little else than the subject which 
presented itself as easiest and upjDermost, namely, clothes. 

Finally, they stood all completely arrayed, even to bonnets; 
Hilary looking wonderfully bewitching in hers, which was the 
very pattern of one that may still be seen in a youthful portrait 
of our gracious queen — a large round brim, with a wreath of 
roses inside; while Miss Leaf^s was somewhat like it, only with 
little bunches of white ribbon, for,^^ she said, my time of 
roses has gone by. But her sweet faded face had a peace that 
was not in the other two — not even in Hilary^s. 

^But the time arrived; the carriage drew up at the door. 
Then nature and sisterly feeling asserted themselves for a 
minute. Miss Selina “gave way,^^ not to any loud or indec- 
orous extent, to nothing that could in the least harm her 
white satin, or crumple her laces and ribbons; but she did shed 
a tear or two — real honest tears— kissed her sisters affection- 
ately, hoped they would be very happy at Richmond, and that 
they would often come to see her at Russell Square. 

“You know,'^ said she, half apologetically, “it is a great 
deal better for one of us at least to be married and settled. 
Indeed, I assure you, I have done it all for the good of my 
family. 

And for the time being she devoutly believed she had. 

So it was all over. Ehzabeth herself, from the aisle of St. 
Pancras Church, watched the beginning and ending of the 
show; a very fine show, with a number of handsomely dressed 
people, wedding guests, who seemed to stare about them a good 
deal, and take little interest in either bride or bridegroom. 
The only persons Elizabeth recognized were her mistresses — 
Miss Leaf, who kept her veil down and never stirred; and Miss 
Hilary, who stood close behind the bride, listening with down- 
cast eyes to the beautiful marriage service. • It must have 
touched her more than on her sister'^s account, for a tear, 
gathered under each eyelash, silently rolled down the soft cheek 
and fell. 

“ Miss Hilary's an angel, and he'll be a lucky man that gets 
Aer," meditated her faithful “ bower-maiden " of old, as, a 
little excited by the event of the morning, she stood by the 
mantel-piece and contemplated a letter which had come after 
the ladies had departed; one of these regular monthly Indian 
letters, after which, Elizabeth was sharp enough to notice. Miss 
Hilary's step always grew lighter and her eye brighter for 
many days. 

“It must be a nice thing to liave somebody fond of one. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


183 


aud somebody to be fond of/^ meditated she. And old-fash- 
ioned piece of goods as she was — according to Mrs. Jones 
(who now, from the use she was in the Joneses menage, pat- 
ronized and confided in her extremely) — some little bit of wom- 
anly craving after the woman’s one hope and crown of bliss 
crept into the poor maid-servant’s heart. But it was not for 
the maid-servant’s usual necessity — a sweetheart ” — some- 
body to “ keep company with;” it was rather for somebody to 
love, and perhaps take care of a little. People love according 
to their natures, and Elizabeth’s was a strong nature; its prin- 
cipal element being a capacity for passionate devotedness, 
almost unlimited in extent. Such women, who love most, are 
not always, indeed very rarely, loved best. And so it was per- 
haps as well that poor Elizabeth should make up her mind, as 
she did very composedly, that she herself should never be mar- 
ried; but after that glorious wedding of Miss Hilary’s to Mr. 
Lyon, should settle down to take care of Miss Leaf all her 
days. 

“ And if I turn out only half as good and contented as my 
misti-ess, it can’t be such a dreadful thing to be an old maid, 
after all,” stoically said Elizabeth Hand. 

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when her atten- 
tion was caught by some one in the passage inquiring for her — 
yes, actually for her. She could hardly believe her eyes when 
she perceived it was. her new-found old acquaintance, Tom 
Cliff e. He was dressed very well, out of livery; indeed, he 
looked so extremely like a gentleman that Mrs. Jones’s little 
girl took him for one, called him ‘‘ Sir,” and showed him into 
the parlor. 

“ All right. I thought this was the house. Uncommon 
sharp of me to hunt you out, wasn’t it, Elizabeth?” 

But Elizabeth was a little stiff, flurried, and perplexed. Her 
mistresses were out; she did not know jvhether she ought to 
ask Tom in, especially as it must be into the parlor: there was 
no other place to take him to. 

However, Tom settled the matter with a conclusive Oh, 
gammon!” — sat himself down, and made himself quite com- 
fortable. • And Elizabeth was so glad to see him — glad to have 
another chance of talking about dear old Stowbury. It could 
not be wrong; she would not say a word about the family, not 
even tell liim she lived with the Misses Leaf if she could help 
it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious. 

Now I call this quite a coincidence. T wjis stopping at 
St. Pancras Church to look at a Avedding— some old city fogy 
Avho Lives in Bussell Square, and is making a great splash; and 


184 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


there 1 see you^ Elizabetli, standing in the crowd, and looking 
so nice and spicy — as fresh as an apple and as brisk as a bee. 
I hummed, and hawed, and whistled, but I couldn't catch your 
eye; then I missed you, and was vexed above a bit, till I saw 
some one like you going in at this door, so I just knocked and 
asked; and here you are! Ton my life, I am very glad to 
see you." 

‘‘ Thank you, Tom," said Elizabeth, pleased, even grateful 
for the trouble he had taken about her: she had so few friends 
— in truth, actually none. 

They began to talk, and Tom Cliffe talked exceedingly well, 
lie had added to his natural cleverness a degree of London 
sharpness, the result of - much knocking about " ever since 
childhood. Besides, his master, the literary gentleman, who 
had picked him out of the printing-office, had taken a deal of 
pains with him. Tom was, for his station, a very mtelligent 
and superior young man. Not a boy, though he was still un- 
der twenty, but a young man: that precocity of development 
which often accompanies a delicate constitution, making him 
appear, as he was indeed, in mind and character, fully six or 
seven years older than his real age. 

He was a handsome fellow, too, though small; dark-haired, 
dark-eyed, with regular, and yet sensitive and mobile features. 
Altogether Tom Clilfe was decidedly interesting, and Elizabeth 
took great pleasure in looking at him, arid m thinking, with a 
certain half-motherly, half-romantic satisfaction, that but for 
her, and her carrying him home from under the horse's heels, 
he might, humanly speaking, have been long ago bui-ied in 
Stowbury church-yard. 

“I have ai ‘church-yard cough' at times still," said he, 
when speaking of this little episode of early life. “ I don't 
think I shall ever live to be a middle-aged man. " And he 
shook his head, and looked melancholy and poetical; nay, even 
showed Elizabeth some poetry that he himself had written on 
the subject, which was clever enough in its way. 

Elizabeth's interest grew. An ordinary baker or butcher 
boy would not have attracted her- in the least; but here was 
something in the shape of a hero, somebody who at once 
touched her sympathies and roused her admiration; .for Tom 
was quite as well informed as she was herself — more so, in- 
deed. He was one of the many shrewd and clever working- 
men who were then beginning to rise up and think for them- 
selves, and educate themselves. He attended classes at 
mechanics' institutions, and young men's debating societies, 
where every topic of the day, religion, politics, political 


t MlSTR-ESS AKl) MAID, 185 

economy, was handled freely, as the young do handle these 
serious things. He threw himself, heart and soul, into the 
new movement, which, Mke all revolutions, had at first its 
great and fatal dangers, but yet resulted in much good; clear- 
ing the political sky, and bringing all sorts of hidden abuses 
under the sharp eyes of that great scourge of evil-doers — pub- 
lic opinion. 

Yet Elizabeth, reared under the wing of the conservative 
Misses Leaf, was a little startled when Tom Oliffe, who ap- 
parently liked talking and being listened to, gave her a long 
dissertation on the true principles of the Charter, and how 
Frost, Williams, and Jones — names all but forgotten now — 
were very ill-used men, actual martyrs. She was more than 
startldd — shocked indeed — until there came a reaction of the 
deepest pity — when he confessed that he never went to church. 
He saw no use in going, he said; the parsons were all shams, 
paid largely to chatter about what they did not understand; 
the only real religion was that which a man thought out for 
himself, and acted out for himself; which was true enough, 
though only a half truth; and innocent Elizabeth did not see 
the other half. 

But she was touched and carried away by the earnestness and 
enthusiasm of the lad, wild, fierce iconoclast as he was, ready 
to cast down the whole fabric of Church and State, though 
mthout any personal hankering after lawless rights and low 
pleasures. His sole idol was, as he said, intellect, and that 
was his preservation. 

Also, the fragile health which was betrayed in every flash of 
his eye, every flush of his sallow cheek, made Tom Cliffe, even 
in the two hours he stayed with her, come very close to Eliza- 
beth’s heart. It was such a warm heart, such a liberal heart, 
thinking so little of itself or of its own value. 

So here began to be told the old story, familiar in kitchens 
as parlors; but, from the higher bringing-up of the two parties 
concerned, conducted in this case more after the fashion of the 
latter than the former. 

Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had 
the sense to see that at once. He paid her no coarse atten- 
tions, did not attempt to make love to her; but he liked her, 
and he let her see that he did. True, she was not pretty, and 
she was older than he; but that, to a boy of nineteen, is rather 
flattering than otherwise. Also, for there is a law even under 
the blind, mystery of likings and fallings in love — a certain 
weakness in liim, that weakness which generally accompanies 
the poetical nature, clung to the quiet, solid, practical strength 


186 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


of hers. He liked to talk and be listened to by those silent, 
admiring, gently gray eyes; and he thought.it very pleasant 
when, with a motherly prudence, she warned Ihm to be carefid 
over his cough, and' gave him a flannel breast-jilate to protect 
his chest against the cold. 

When he went away Tom was so far in love that, following 
the free and easy ways, of his class, he attempted to give Eliza- 
beth a kiss; but she drew back so hotly that he begged her par- 
don, and slipped away rather confounded. 

“ That’s an odd sort of young woman; there’s something in 
her,” said he to himself. “ I’ll get a kiss, though, by and 
by/" 

Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her dinner, 
sat thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, until within 
half an hour of the time when her mistresses might be expected 
back. They were to go direct to the hotel, breakfast, wait till 
the newly married couple had departed, and then come home. 
They would be sure to be weary, and want their tea. 

So Elizabeth made everything ready for them, steadily put- 
ting Tom Cliffe out of her mind. One thing she was glad of, 
that, talking so much about his own affairs, he had forgotten 
to inquire concerning hers, and was still quite ignorant even of 
lier mistress’s name. He therefore could tell no tales of the 
Leaf family at Stowbury. Still she determined at once to in- 
form Miss Hilary that he had been here, but that, if she wished 
it, he should never come again. And it spoke well for her re- 
solve that, while resolving, she was startled to find how very 
sorry she should feel if Tom Cliffe never came again. 

I know I am painting this young woman with a strangely 
tender conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general moral 
sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to be found 
in her rank of life. And why not? Because mistresses treat 
servants as servants, and not as women; because in the sharp, 
hard line they draw, at the outset, between themselves and 
their domestics, they give no chance for any womanliness to be 
developed; and therefore, since human nature is weak, and 
without help from without, a long degraded class can never 
rise; sweethearts will still come crawling through back entries 
and down at area doors; mistresses will still have to dismiss 
helpless and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, manv a wretched girl 
who once was innocent; or, if nothing actually vicious results, 
may have many a good, respectable servant, \yhd left to get 
married, return, complaining that her ‘'young man,” whom 
she knew so- little about, has turned out a drunken scoundrel 
of a husband, who drives her back to her old comfortable 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


187 


place to beg for herself and her starving babies a morsel 
of bread. 

When, with a vivid blush that she could not repress, Eliza- 
beth told her mistress that Tom Clitfe had been to see her, the 
latter replied at first carelessly, for her mind was preoccupied. 
Then, her attention caught by the aforesaid blush. Miss Hilary 

“ How old is the lad?^^ 

“ Nineteen. 

“That's a bad age, Elizabeth. Too old to be a pet, and 
rather too young for a husband." 

“ I never thought of such a thing," said Elizabeth, warmly 
— and honestly, at the time. 

“ Did he want to come and see you again?" 

“He said so." 

“ Oh, well, if he is a steady, respectable lad, there can be 
no objection. I should like to see him myself next time." 

And then a sudden sharp reflection that there would likely 
be no next time, in their service at least, made Miss Hilary feel 
quite a h3q)Ocrite. 

“ Elizabeth," said she, “ we will speak about Tom Cliff e — 
is not that liis name? — by and by. Now, as soon as tea is over, 
my sister wants to talk to you. When you are ready, will you 
come upstairs?" 

She spoke in an especially gentle tone, so that by no possi- 
bility could Elizabeth fancy they were displeased with her. 

Now, knowing the circumstances of the family, Elizabeth's 
conscience had often smitten her that she must eat a great 
deal; that her wages, paid regularly month by month, must 
make a great hole in her mistresses' income. She was, alack! 
a sad expense, and she tried to lighten her cost in every possi- 
ble way. But it never struck her that they could do without 
her, or that any need would arise for their doing so. So she 
went hito the parlor quite unsuspiciously, and found Miss Leaf 
lying on the sofa, and Miss Hilary reading aloud the letter 
from India. But it was laid quietly aside as she said, 

“ Johanna, Elizabeth is here. " 

Then Johanna, rousing herself to say what must. be said, but 
putting it as gently and kindly as she could, told Elizabeth, 
what mistresses often think it below their dignity to tell to 
servants, the plain truth— namely, that circumstances obliged 
herself and Miss Hilary to retrench their ex2)enses as much as 
they possibly (iould. That they were going to live in two little 
rooms at Eichinond, where they would board with the inmates 
of the house. 


188 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


And so, and so—’" Miss Leaf faltered. It was very hard 
to say it with those eager eyes fixed upon her. 

Hilary took up the word — 

‘‘And so, Elizabeth, much as it grieves us, we shall be 
obliged to part with you. We can not any longer afford to 
keep a servant.’^ 

No answer.- 

“ It is not even as it was once before, when we thought you 
might do better for ‘ yourself . We know, if it were possible, 
you would rather stay with us, and we would rather keep you. 
It is like parting with one of our own family. ” And Miss 
Hilary^ s voice too failed. “ However, there is no help for it; 
we must part.-’^ 

Elizabeth, recovered from her first bewildered grief, was on 
the point of bursting out into entreaties that she might do like 
many another faithful servant, live without wages, put up with 
any hardships, rather than be sent away. But something in 
Miss Hilary's manner told her it would be useless — worse than 
useless, painful; and she would do anything rather than give 
her mistress pain. When, utterly unable to control it, she 
gave vent to one loud sob, the expression of acute suffering on 
Miss Hilary's countenance was such that she determined to sob 
no more. She felt that, for some reason or other, the thing 
was inevitable; that she must take up her burden, as her mis- 
tress had done, even though it were the last grief of all — leav- 
ing that beloved mistress. 

“ That's right, Ehzabeth," said Miss Hilary, softly. “ All 
these changes are very bitter to us also, but we must bear 
them. There is nothing lasting in 'this world except doing 
right, and being good, and faithful, and helpful to one an- 
other." 

She sighed. Possibly there had been sad tidings in the letter 
which she still held in her hand, clinging to it as we do to 
something which, however sorely it hurts us, we would not part 
with for the whole world. But there was no hopelessness or 
despair in her tone, and Elizabeth caught the influence of that 
true courageous heart. 

“Perhaps you may be able to take me back again soon, 
ma'am," said she, looking toward Miss Leaf. “And mean- 
time I might get a place; Mrs. Jones has told me of several;" 
and she stopped, afraid lest it might be found out how often 
Mrs. Jones had urged her to “better lierself," and she had 
indiguantly refused. “ Or " (a bright idea occurred) “ I won- 
der if Miss Selina, that is, Mrs. Ascott, would take me in at 
Bussell Square?" 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


189 


Hilary looked hard at her. 

‘‘ Would you really like that?^^ 

“ Yes^ I should; for I should see and hear of you. Miss 
Hilary, if you please, I wish you would ask Mrs. Ascott to 
take me. 

And Hilary, much surprised — for she was well acquainted 
with Elizabeth's sentiments toward both Mr. Ascott and the 
late Miss Selina — ^promised. 


CHAPTER ZXII. 

And now I leave Miss Hilary for a time — leave her in, if 
not happiness, great peace — peace which, after these stormy 
months, was an actual paradise of calm to both herself and 
Johanna. 

Their grief for Ascott had softened down. Its very hope- 
lessness gave it resignation. There was nothing more to be 
done; they had done all they could, both to find him out and 
to save him from the public disgrace which might blight any 
hope of reformation. Now the result must be left in higher 
hands. 

Only at times fits of restless trouble would come; times when 
a sudden knock at the door would make Johanna shake nerv- 
ously for minutes afterward; when Hilary walked about every- 
where with her mind preoccupied, and her eyes open to notice 
every chance passer-by; nay, she had sometimes secretly fol- 
lowed down a whole street some figure which, in its light, 
jaunty step, and long, fashionably cut hair, reminded her of 
Ascott. 

Otherwise they were not unhappy, she and her dearest sister. 
Poor as they were, they were together, and their poverty had 
no sting. They knew exactly how much they would receive 
monthly, and how much they ought to spend. Though obliged 
to calculate every penny, still their income and their expenses 
were alike certain; there was no anxiety about money matters, 
which ‘ of itself was an mdescribable relief. Also, there was 
that best blessing — peace at home. Never in all her days had 
Johanna known such an easy life; sitting quietly in her parlor 
while Hilary was engaged in the shop below; descending to din- 
ner, where she took the head of the table, and the young peo- 
ple soon learned to treat her witli great respect and even affec- 
tion ; then W{^,iting for the happy tea in their own i*oom, and 
the walk afterward in Ricliniond Park or along the Tliames 
banks toward Twickenham. Perhaps it was partly from the 
contrast to that weary year in London; but never, in any 


190 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


sjiring, had the air seemed so balmy/ or the trees so green. 
They brought back to Hilary’s face the youthful bloom which 
she had begun to lose, and, in degree, her youthful brightness, 
which had also become shghtly overclouded. Again she laughed 
and made her little domestic jokes, and regained her pretty 
way of putting things, so that everything always appeared to 
have a cheerful, and even a comical side. 

Also — for while we are made as we are, with capacity for 
happiness, and especially the happiness of a love, it is sure to he 
thus — she had a little private sunbeam in her own heart which 
brightened outside things. After that sad letter from India 
which came on Selina’s wedding-day, every succeeding one grew 
more cheerful, more demonstrative, nay, even affectionate; 
though still with that queer Scotch pride of his, that would ask 
for nothing till it could ask and have everything, and give 
everything in return — the letters were all addressed to J ohanna. 

‘‘ What an advantage it is to be an old woman!” Miss Leaf 
would sometimes say, mischievously, when she received them. 
But more often she said nothing, waiting in peace for events 
to develop themselves. She did not think much about herself, 
and had no mean jealousy over her child; she knew that a 
righteous and holy love only makes all natural affections more 
saCred and more dear. 

And Hilary? She held her head higher and prouder; and 
the spring trees looked greener, and the river ran brighter in 
the sunshine. Ah, Heaven pity us all! it is a good thing to 
have love in one’s life; it is a good thing, if only for a time, to 
be actually happy — not merely contented, but happy ! 

And so I will leave her, this little woman; and nobody need 
mourn over her because she is working too hard, or pity her 
because she is obliged to work; has to wear common clothes, 
and live in narrow rooms, and pass on her poor weary feet the 
grand carriages of the Richmond gentry, who ai^ not a bit 
more well-born or well-educated than she; who never take the 
least notice of her, except sometimes to peer curiously at the 
desk where she sits in the shop-corner, and wonder who “ that 
young, person with the rather pretty cmls ” can be. Ho mat- 
ter, she is happy. 

How much happiness was there in the large house at Russell 
Square? 

The Misses Leaf could not tell; their sister never gave them 
an opportunity of judging. 

“ My son’s my son till he gets him a wife, 

But my daughter’s my daughter all her life.’’ 


MISTRESS AKD MAIl). I9l 

And so, most frequently, is ‘‘ my sister.'' But not in tins 
case. It could not be; they never expected it would. 

^ When, on her rare visits to town, Hilary called at Russell 
Square, she always found Mrs. Ascott handsomely dressed, 
dignified, and gracious. Hot in the slightest degree uncivil or 
unsisterly, but gracious — perhaps ^ thought too gracious. 
Most condescendingly anxious that she should stay for luncheon, 
and eat and drink the best the house afforded, but never by 
any chance inviting her to stay to dinner. Consequently, as 
Mr. Ascott was always absent in the city until dinner, Hilary 
did not see him for months together, and her brother-in-law 
was, she declared, no more to her than any other man upon 
'Change, or the man in the moon, or the Great Mogul. 

His wife spoke little about him. After a few faint, formal 
questions concerning Richmond affairs, somehow her conversa- 
tion always recurred to her own — the dinners she had been at, 
those she was going to give, her carriages, clothes, jewelry, 
and so on. She was altogether a very great lady, and Hilary, 
as she avouched laughingly — it was, in this case, better to 
laugh than to grieve — felt an exceedingly small person beside 
her. 

Nevertheless, Mrs. Ascott showed no unkindness — nay, 
among the various changes that matrimony had produced in 
her,, her temper appeared rather to have improved than other- 
wise; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy sharpness 
which used to be called poor Selina's way. " And yet Hilary 
never quitted the house without saying to herself, with a sigh, 
the old phrase, Poor Selina!" 

Thus, in the inevitable consequences of things, her visits to 
Russell Square became fewer and fewer; she kept them up as 
a duty, not exacting any return, for she felt that was impossi- 
ble, though still keepmg up the ghostly shadow of sisterly inti- 
macy. Nevertheless, she knew well it was but a shadow; that 
the only face that looked honest, glad welcome, or that she 
was honestly glad to see in her brother-in-law's house, was the 
under house-maid, Elizabeth Hand. 

Contrary to all expectations, Mrs. Ascott had consented to 
take Elizabeth into her service. With many stipulations and 
warnings never to presume on past relations, never even to 
mention Stowbury on pain of instant dismission, still she did 
take her, 'and Elizabeth stayed. At every one of Miss Hilary's 
visits, l3dng in wait in the bed-chamber, or on the staircase, or 
creeping up at the last minute to open the hall door, was sure 
to appear the familiar face, beaming all over. Little conversa- 
tion passed between them — Mrs. Ascott evidently disliked it; 


IVTTRTTIESS ANT) ’MATT). 


192 

•still Elizabetli looked well and happy, and when Miss Hilary 
told her so she always silently smiled. 

Blit this story must tell the whole truth which lay beneath 
that fond, acquiescing smile; 

Elizabeth was certainly in good health, being well fed, well 
housed, and leading, on the whole, an easy life; happy, too, 
when she looked at Miss Hilary. But her migi-ation from Mrs. 
Joneses lodgings to this grand mansion had not been altogether 
the translation from Purgatory to Paradise that some would 
have supposed. 

The author of this simple story having— unfortunately for it 
— never been in domestic service, especially in the great houses 
of London, does not pretend To describe the ins and outs of 
their high life below stairs;"" to repeat kitchen conversations, 
to paint the humors of the servants" hall — the butler and house- 
keeper getting tipsy together, the cook courting the policeman, 
and the footman making love successively to every house-maid 
and lady"s-maid. Some writers have depicted all this, whether 
faithfully or not they know best; but the present writer de- 
clines to attempt anything of the kind. Her business is solel}^ 
with one domestic, the country girl who came unexpectedly into 
this new world of London servant-life— a world essentially its 
own, and a life of which the upper classes are as ignorant as 
they are of what goes on in Madagascar and Otaheite. 

This fact was the first which struck the unsophisticated Eliza- 
beth. She, who had been brought up in a sort of feudal rela- 
tionship to her dear mistresses, was astonished to find the 
domestics of Russell Square banded together into a community 
which, in spite of their personal bickerings and jealousies, 

^ ended in alliance offensive and defensive against the superior 
' powers, whom they looked upon as their natural enemies. In- 
visible enemies certainly; for “ master "" they hardly ever saw, 
and, excepting the lady"s-'maid, were mostly as ignorant of 
“missis."" The housekeeper was the middle link between 
the two estates — ^the person with whom all business was trans- 
acted, and to whom all complaints had to be made. Beyond 
being sometimes talked over, generally in a quizzical, depre- 
ciatory, or condemnatory way, the heads . of the establishment 
were no more to their domestics than the people who paid 
wages and exacted in return certain duties, which most of 
them made as small as possible, and escaped whenever they 
could. 

If this be an exaggerated picture of a state of things perhaps 
in degree inevitable — and yet it should not be, for it is the 
source of incalculable evil, this dividing of a house against 


MISTRESS ANB MAID. ' • l93 

itself — if I have in any way said what is not true, J would that . 
some intelligent voice from the kitchen would rise up and 
fell us what is true, and whether it be possible on either side 
to find means of amending what so sorely needs reformation. 

Elizabeth sometimes wanted Tom Chffe to do this — to 
‘‘write a book,^^ which he^ eager young malcontent, was 
always threatening to do, upon the evils of society, and espe- 
cially the tyranny of the upper classes. Tom Cliffe was the 
only person to whom she imparted her troubles and perplexities: 
how different her life was from . that she had been used to; how 
among her fellow-servants there was not one who did not seem 
to think and act in a mannei; totally opposed to everything she 
had learned from Miss Hilary; how, consequently, she herself 
was teased, bullied, threatened, or, at best, “ sent to Ooventi-y 
from morning- till night. 

“ T’m quite alone, Tom — I am, indeed,^’ said she, almost 
crying, the first Sunday night when she met him accidentally 
in gotug to church, and, in her dreary state of mind, was ex- 
ceefingly glad to see him. He consoled her, and even went to 
church with her, half promising to do the same next Sunday, 
and calling her “ a good little Christian, who almost inclined 
him to be a Christian too. 

And so, with the vague feeling that she was doing him good 
and keeping him out of harm — that lad who had so’ much that 
was kindly and nice about him — Elizabeth consented, not exactly 
to an appointment, but she told him what were her “ Sundays 
out,'^ and the church she usually attended, if he liked to take 
the chance of her being there. 

, Alack! she had so few. pleasures; she so seldom got even a 
breath of outside air — it was not thought necessary for serv- 
ants. The only hour she was allowed out was the church-go- 
ing on alternate Sunday evenings. How pleasant it was to 
creep out then, and see Tom waiting for her under the oppo- ^ 
site trees, dressed so smart and gentleman-like, looking so hand- 
some and so glad to see her — her, the poor countrified Eliza- 
beth, who was quizzed incessantly by her fellow-servants on her 
oddness, plainness, and stupidity. 

Tom did not seem to think her stupid, for he talked to her 
of all his doings and plannings, vague and wild as those of the 
young tailor in “ Alton Locke,'’ yet with a romantic enerp^ 
about them that strongly interested his companion; and he 
read her his poetry, and addressed a few lines to herself, begin- 
ning. 

Dearest and l)est, my long familiar friend;” 

S' ‘ ’ 


194 


MISTRESS AKt) MAID. 


which was rather a poetical exaggeration, since lie had alto- 
gether forgotten her in the interval of their separation. But 
she never guessed this, and so they both clung to the early tie, 
making it out to be ten times stronger than it really was, as 
people do who are glad of any excuse for being fond of one an- 
other. 

Tom really was getting fond of Elizabeth. She touched the 
higher half of his nature — the spiritual and imaginative half. 
That he had it, though only a working-man, and she too, 
though only a domestic servant, was most true: probably many 
more of their class have it than we are at all aware of. There- 
fore these two, being special individuals, were attracted by each 
other; she by him because he was so clever, and he by her be- 
cause she was so good. For he had an ideal, poor Tom Cliff e! 
and, though it had been smothered and laid to sleep by a not 
too regular life, it woke up again under the kind, sincere eyes 
of this plain, simple-minded, honest Elizabeth Hand. 

He knew she was plain, and so old-fashioned in her dress,' 
that Tom, who was particular about such things, did not 
always like walking with her ^ but she was so interesting and 
true; she sympathized with him so warmly — he found her so 
unfailingly and unvaryingly good to him through all the little 
humors and pettishnesses that almost always accompany a large 
brain, a nervous temperament, and delicate health. Her quiet- 
ness soothed him, her strength of character supported him; he 
at once leaned oh her and ruled over her. 

As to Elizabeth's feelings toward Tom, they will hardly bear 
analyzing; probably hardly any strong emotion will, especially 
one that is not sudden, but progressive. She admired him ex- 
tremely, and yet she was half sorry for him. Some things in 
him she did not at all like, and tried heartily to amend. His 
nervous fancies, irritations, and vagaries she was exceedingly 
tender over; she looked up to him, and yet took care of him; 
this thought of him, and anxiety over him, became by degrees 
the habit of her life. People love in so many different ways; 
and perhaps that was the natural way in which a woman like 
Elizabeth would love, or creep into love without knowing it, 
which is either the safest or the saddest form which the passion 
can assume. 

Thus things went on, till one dark, rainy Sunday night, 
walking round and round the inner circle of the square, Tom 
expressed his feelings, at first in somewhat high-flown and 
poetical phrases, then melting into the one eternally old and 
eternally new ‘‘ Do you love me?^^ followed by a long, long 
kiss, given under shelter of the umbrella, and in mortal fear of 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


the approaching policeman, who, however, never saw them, or 
saw them only as ‘‘a pair of sweethearts^' — too common an 
occurrence on his heat to excite any attention. 

But to Elizabeth the whole thing was new, wonderful; a 
bliss so far beyond anything that had ever befallen her simple 
life, and so utterly unexpected therein, that when she went to 
her bed that night she cried like a child over the happiness of 
Tom loving her, and her exceeding unworthiness of the same. 

Then difficulties arose in her mind. “No followers allowed ' ' 
was one of the strict laws of the Russell Square dynasty. Like 
many another law of that and of much higher dynasties, it 
was only made to be broken; for stray sweethearts were con- 
tinually climbing down area railings, or over garden walls, or 
hiding themselves behind kitchen doors. Nay, to such an ex- 
tent was the system carried out, each servant being, froiji self- 
interest, a safe co-conspirator, that very often, when Mr. and 
Mrs. Ascott went out to dinner, and the old housekeeper re- 
tired to bed, there were regular symposia held below stairs — 
nice little supper-parties, where all the viands in the pantry 
and the wines in the cellar were freely used; where every 
domestic had his or her “ young man " or “ young woman,'’ 
and the goings-on, though not actually discreditable, were of 
the most lively kind. 

To be cognizant of ^these, and yet to feel that, as there was 
no actual wickedness going on, she was not justified in “ blab- 
bing," was a severe and perpetual trial to Elizabeth. To join 
them, or bring Tom among them as her “ young man," was 
impossible. 

“ No, Tom," she said^ when he begged hard to come in one 
evening — for it was raining fast, and he had a Tiad cough — 
“ No, Tom, I can’t let you. If other folk break the laws of 
the house, I won't; you must go. I can only meet you out-of- 
doors. " 

And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were 
ashamed of him, or as if there were something wrong in their 
being fond of one another, jarred upon Elizabeth's honest nat- 
ure. She did not want to make a show of him, especially to her 
fellow-servants: she had the true woman's instinct of liking to 
keep her treasures all to herseK, but she had also her sex's nat- 
ural yearning for sympathy in the great event of a woman's 
life. She would have liked to have somebody unto whom she 
could say, “ Tom has asked me. to marry him," and who would 
have answered cordially, “It's all right; he is a good f eUow ; 
you are sure to be happy." 

Not that she doubted this; but it would have been an ad- 


396 MISTRESS AND MAID. 

ditional comfort to have a mother's blessing, or a sister's, or 
even a friend's, upon this strange and sweet emotion which had 
come ' into her life. So long as it was thus kept secret there 
seemed a certain incompleteness and unsanctity about even 
their happy love. . • 

Tom did not comprehend this at all. He only laughed at 
her for feeling so ‘‘ nesh " (that means tender, sensitive; but 
the word is almost unexplainable to other than Stowbury ears) 
on the subject. He liked the romance and excitement of secret 
courtship — men often do; Tarely women, unless there is some- 
thing in them not quite right, not entirely womanly. 

But Tom was very considerate, and though he called it 
‘‘silly," and took a little fit of crossness on the occasion, he 
allowed Elizabeth to write to her mother about him, and con- 
sented that on her next holiday she should go to Eichmond, in 
order to speak to Miss Hilary on the same subject, and ask her 
also to write to Mrs. Hand, stating how good and clever Tom 
was, and how exceedingly happy was Tom's Elizabeth. 

“ And won't you come and fetch me, Tom?" asked she, 
shyly. “ I am sure Miss Hilary would not object, nor Miss 
Leaf neither. " 

Tom protested he did not care two straws whether they ob- 
jected or not; he was a man of twenty, in a good trade — he 
had lately gone back to the printing, ^nd being a clever work- 
man, earned capital wages. He hM a right to choose whom 
he liked, and marry when he pleased. If Elizabeth didn't 
care for him, she might leave him alone. 

“Oh, Tom!" was all she answered, with a strange gentle- 
ness that no one could have believed would ever have come 
into the manner of South Sea Islander. And quitting the sub- 
ject then, she aftenvard persuaded him, and not for the first 
time, into consenting to what sire thought right. There is 
something rather touching in a servant's holiday. It comes so 
seldom. She must count on it for so long beforehand, and 
remember it for so long afterward. This present writer owns 
to a strong sympathy with the holiday-makers on the grand 
gala days of the Enghsh calendar. It is a pleasure to watch 
the innumerable groups of family folk, little children, and 
'prentice lads. 

Dressed in all their best, 

To walk abroad with Sally.” 

And the various “ Sallys " and their corresponding swains can 
hardly feel more regret than she when it happens to be wet 
weather on Easter week or at Whitsuntide. 

Whit-Monday, the day when Tom escaped from the printing 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


197 


office, and Elizabeth got leave of absence for six hours, was as 
glorious a June day as well could be. As thp two young people 
perched themselves on the top of the Eichmond omnibus, and 
drove through Kensington, Hammersmith, Turnham Green, 
and over Kew Bridge — Tom pointing out all the places, and 
giving much curious information about them — Elizabeth 
thought there never was a more beautiful country or a more 
lovely summer day: she was, she truly said, “ as happy as a 
queen. 

Nevertheless, when the omnibus stopped, she, with great 
self-denial, insisted on getting rid of Tom for a time. She 
thought Miss Hilary might not quite like Tomb’s knowing 
where she lived, or what her occupation was, lest he might 
gossip about it to Stowbury people; so she determined to pay 
her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him at a certain 
hour on Eichmond Bridge, over which bridge she watched him 
march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure that he should- 
be so much vexed at losing her company for an hour or two. 
But she knew he would soon come to himself — as he did, before 
he had been half a mile on the road to Hampton Odurt, meet- 
ing a young -fellow he knew, and going with him oyer that 
grand old palace, which furnished them with a subject at their 
next debating society, where they both came out very strong 
on the question of hypocritical priests and obnoxious kings, 
with especial reference to Henry VIH. and Cardinal Wolsey, 

Meanwhile Elizabeth went in search of the little shop— which 
nobody need expect to find at Eichmond now — ^bearing the 
well-known name ‘‘ Janet Balquidder. Entering it, for there 
was no private door, she saw, in the far corner above the cur- 
tained desk, the pretty curls of her dear Miss Hilary. 

Elizabeth had long known that her mistress kept a shop^^"^ 
and, with the notions of gentility which are just as rife in her 
class as in any other, had mourned bitterly over this fact. But 
when she saw how fresh and well the young lady looked, how 
busily and cheerfully she seemed to work with her great books 
before her, and with what a composed grace and dignity she 
came forward when asked for, Elizabeth secretly confessed that 
not even keeping a shop had made or could make the smallest 
difference in Miss Hilary. 

She herself was much more changed. 

Wliy, Elizabeth, I should hardly have known you!^^ was 
the involuntary exclamation of her late mistress. 

She certainly did look very nice; not smart — for her sober 
taste preferred quiet colors— but excessively neat and well 
dressed. In her new gown of gray '' coburg,"' her one hand- 


198 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


some shawl, which had been honored several times by Miss 
Hilary^ s wearing,^ her white straw bonnet and white ribbons, 
underneath which the smooth black hair and soft eyes showed 
to great advantage, she appeared, not '' like a lady — a serv- 
ant can seldom do that, let her dress be ever so fine— but 
like a thoroughly respectable, intelligent, and pleasant-faced 
young woman. 

And her blushes came and went so fast, she was so nervous 
and yet so beamingly happy, that Miss Hilary soon suspected 
there was more in her visit than at first appeared. Knowing 
that with Elizabethans great shyness the mystery would never 
come out in public, she took an opportunity of asking her to 
help her in the bedroom, and there, with the folding-doors 
safely shut, discovered, the whole secret.^ 

Miss Hilary wrs a good deal surprised at first. She had 
never thought of Ehzabeth as likely to get married at all — and 
toTomOlift'e. 

“ Why, isn'nt he a mere boy; ever so much younger than 3rou 
are?^^ 

Three years. 

‘‘ That is a pity — a great pity; women grow old so much 
faster than men. 

“ I know that,^'’ said Elizabeth, somewhat sorrowfully. 

“ Besides, did you not tell me he was very handsome and 
clever?^^ 

‘‘Yes; and I^m neither the one nor the other. I have 
thought all that over too, many a time; indeed I have. Miss 
Hilary. But Tom likes me^ — or fancies he does. Do you 
think — and the intense humility which true love always has, 
struck into Miss Hilary^s own conscious heart a conviction of 
how very true this poor girTs love must be. “ Do you think 
he is mistaken? that his liking me — I mean in that sort of way 
— is quite impossible?^ ^ 

“ Ko, indeed, and I. never said it — never thought it,^"’ was 
the earnest reply. “But consider; three years younger than 
yourself; handsomer and cleverer than you are — 

Miss Hilary stopped; it seemed so cruel to say such things, 
and yet she felt bound to say them. She knew her former 
“ bower-maiden well enough to be convinced that if Eliza- 
beth were not happy in marriage she would be worse than un- 
happy — might grow actually bad. 

“ He loves you now; you are sure of that; but are.vypu sure 
that he is a thoroughly stable and reliable character? ^rDo you 
believe he will love you always?^^ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 199 

T canH-teil. Perhaps — if I deserved said poor Eliza- 

beth. 

And, looking at the downcast eyes, at the thorough womanly 
sweetness and tenderness which suffused the whole face, Hil- 
ary's doubts began to melt away. She thought how some- 
times men, captivated by inward rather than outward graces, 
have fallen in love with plain women, or women older than 
themselves, and actually kept to their attachment through life 
with a fidelity rare as beautiful. Perhaps this young fellow, 
who seemed, by all accounts, superior to his class, having had 
the sense to choose that pearl in an oyster-shell, Elizabeth 
Hand, might also have the sense to appreciate her, and go on 
loving her to the end of his days. Anyhow, he loved her now, 
and she loved him, and it was useless reasoning any more 
about it. 

Come, Elizabeth,"^ cried her mistress, cheerfully, "‘ I have 
said all my say, and now I have only to give my good wishes. 
If Tom Cliffe deserves you, I am sure you deserve him, and I 
should like to tell him so.'’ ^ 

Should you. Miss Hilary?^ ^ and with a visible brightening 
up Elizabeth betrayed Tom’s whereabouts, and her little con- 
spiracy, to bring him here, and her hesitation lest it might be 
“intruding.” 

“ Hot at all. Tell him to come at once. I am not like my 
sister; we always allow ‘ followers.’ I think a mistress stands 
in the relation of a parent for the time being, and that can not 
be a right or good love which is concealed from her, as if it 
were a thing to be ashamed of.” 

“ I think so too. And I’m not a bit ashamed of Tom, nor 
he of me,” said Ehzabeth, so energetically that Miss Hilary 
smiled. 

“ Very well; take him to have his tea in the kitchen, and 
then bring him upstairs to speak to my sister and me.” 

At that interview, which of course was rather trpng, Tom 
acquitted himself to everybody’s satisfaction. He was manly, 
modest, self-possessed; did not say much — ^his usual talkative- 
ness being restrained by the circumstances of the case, and the 
great impression. made upon him by Miss Hilary, who> he 
afterward admitted to Elizabeth, “ was a real angel, and he 
should write a poem upon her. ” But the little he did say gave 
tlie ladies a very good impression of the intelligence and even 
refinement of Elizabeth’s sweetheart. And though they were 
sorry to see him look so delicate, still there was a something 
better than handsomeness in his handsome face, which made 


200 


MTSTRESa AND MATD. 


them not altogether surprised at Elizabeth's being so fond of 
him. 

As she watched the young couple down Kichmond Sti*eet in 
the soft summer twilight — Elizabeth taking Tom^s arm, and 
Tom drawing up his stooping figure to its utmost extent, both 
a little ill matched in height as they were in some other things, 
but walking with that air of perfect confidence and perfect 
contentedness in each other which always betrays, to a quick 
eye, those who have agreed to walk through the world together 
— Miss Hilary turned from the window and sighed. 


CHAPTER XXIIL 

Following Miss Hilary^s earnest advice that everything 
should be fair and open, Elizabeth, on the very next day after 
that happy Whit-Monday, mustered up her courage, asked 
permission to speak to her mistress, and told her she was 
going to be married to Tom Cliffe; not immediately, but in a 
yearns time or so, if all went well. 

Mrs. Ascott replied sharply that it was no afi'air of hers> and 
she could not be troubled about it. For her part, she thought, 
if servants knew their own advantages, they would keep a good 
place when they had it, arid never get married at all. And 
then, saying she had heard a good character of her from the 
housekeeper, she offered Elizabeth the place of upper house- 
maid, a young girl, a protegee of the housekeeper’s, being 
substituted in hers. 

“ And when you have sixteen pounds a year, and somebody 
to do all your hard work for you, I dare say you’ll think better 
of it, and not be so foolish as to go and get married. ” 

But Elizabeth had her own private opinion on that matter. 
She was but a woman, poor thing! and two tiny rooms of her 
own, with Tom to riare for and look after, seemed a far hap- 
pier home than that great house, where she had not only her 
own work to do, but the' responsibility of teaching and taking 
charge of that careless, stupid, pretty Esther, who had all the 
forwardness, untidiness, and unconscientiousness of a regular 
London maid-servant, and was a sore trial to the staid, steady 
Elizabeth. 

Tom consoled her, in his careless but affectionate way; and 
another silent consolation was the “little bits of things,” 
bought out of her additional wages, which she began to put by 
in her box — sticks and straws for the new sweet nest that was 
a-building: a metal tea-pot, two neat glass salt-cellars, and — 
awful extravagance! — two real second-hand silver spoons — 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


201 


Tom did so like having things nice about him! These pur- 
chases, picked up at stray times, were solid, substantial, and 
useful; domestic rather than personal; and all with a view to 
Tom rather than herself. She hid them with a magpie-like 
closeness, for Esther and she shared the same room; but some- 
times when Esther was asleep she would peep at them with an 
anxious, lingering tenderness, as if ;they made more of an 
assured reality what even now seemed so very like a dream. 

— Except, indeed, on. th^se Sunday nights when Tom and 
she went to church together, and afterward took a walk, but 
always parted at the corner of the. square. She never brought 
him into the house, nor sdoke of him to her fellow-servants. 
How much they guessed of her engagement she neither knew 
nor cared. 

•Mrs. Ascott, too, had apparently quite forgotten it. She 
seemed to take as little interest in her servants" affairs as they 
m hers. 

Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in general 
of what was passing in the upper, occasionally rumors began 
to reach the kitchen that '‘master had been' a-blowing up 
missis, rather!"" And once, after the solemn dinner, with 
three footmen to wait on two people, was over, Elizabeth, 
passing through the hall, caught the said domestics laughing 
together, and saying it was " as good ^s a play; cat and dog 
was nothing to it."" After which the rows upstairs "" became 
a favorite joke in the servants" hall. 

But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and 
came home to dinner; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning hi 
her private sitting-room or "boudoir,"" as she called it; 
lunched, and drove out in her handsome carriage, with her 
footman behind; dressed elegantly for dinner, and presided at 
her own table with an air of magnificent satisfaction in all 
things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to her new 
position; and if under her satins and laces beat a solitary, dis- 
satisfied, or aching heart, it was nobody"s business but her 
own. At least, she kept up "the splendid sham with a most 
creditable persistency. , . 

But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever so 
smooth and green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint wreath 
of smoke betray the inward volcano. Tlie like had happened 
once or twice, as on the day when the men-servants were so in- 
tensely amused. Also Elizabeth-, when putting in order her 
mistress"s bedroom, which was about the hour Mi. Ascott left 
for the city, had several times seen Mrs. Ascott come in there 
suddenly, white and trembling. Once, so agitated was she 


202 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


that Elizabeth had brought her a glass of water; and instead 
of being angry or treating her with the distant dignity which 
she had always kept up, her mistress had said, almost in the 
old Stowbury tone, Thank you, Elizabeth.'’^ 

. However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, but 
to slip from the room, and keep her own counsel. 

' At last, one day, the smoldering domestic earthquake broke 
out. There was ‘‘ a precious good row,'’^ the footman suspect- 
ed, at the breakfast-table; and aftet breakfast, master, without 
waiting for the usual attendance of that functionary with his 
hat, and gloves, and a hansom cab, had flung himself, out at 
the hall door, slamming if after him with a noise that startled 
the whole house. Shortly afterward missises bell had rung 
violently, and she had been found lying on the floor of her bed- 
room in a dead faint, her maid, a foolish little French woman, 
screaming over her. 

The frightened servants gathered round in a cluster, but 
nobody attempted to touch the poor lady, who lay rigid and 
helpless, hearing none of the comments that were freely made 
upon her, or the conjectures as to what master had done or 
said that produced this state of things. Mistress she' was, and 
these four or five women, her servants, had lived in her house 
for months, but nobody loved her; nobody knew anything 
about her; nobody thought Of dmng aught for her, till a 
kitchen-maid, probably out of former experience in some do- 
mestic emergency, suggested, ‘‘Fetch Ehzabeth.^’ 

The advice was eagerly caught at, everybody being so thank- 
ful to have the responsibility shifted to some other body’s 
shoulders; so in five minutes Elizabeth had the room cleared, 
and her mistress laid upon the bed, with nobody near except 
herself and the French maid. . 

By and by Mrs. Ascott 'opened her eyes. 

“ Who’s that? What are you doing to me?” 

“ Nothing, ma’am. It’s only me — Elizabeth.” 

At the familiar soothing voice the poor woman — a poor, 
wretched, forlorn woman she looked lying there, in spite of all 
her grandeur — turned feebly round. 

“ Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so ill! take care of me.” And she 
fainted away once more. 

It was some time before she came quite to herself, and then 
the first thing she said was to bid Elizabeth to bolt the door 
and keep everybody out. 

“ The doctor, ma’am, if he comes?” 

“ I’ll not see him* I don’t want him. I know what it is. 

I—” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


303 


She pulled Elizabeth closer to her, whispered something in 
her ear, and then burst into a violent fit of hysterical weeping. 

Amazed, shocked, Elizabeth at first did not know what to 
do; then she took her mistresses head on her shoulder, and 
quieted her by degrees almost as she would a child. The sob- 
bing ceased, and Mrs. Ascott lay still a minute, till suddenly 
she clutched Elizabethes arm. 

Mind you don^t tell. He doesnT know, and he shall not ; 
it would please him so. It does not please me. Sometimes I 
almost think I shall hate it because it is his child. 

She spoke with a fierceness that was hardly credible either 
in the dignified Mrs. Peter Ascott or the languid Miss Selina. 
To think of Miss Selina ^s expecting a baby! The idea perfect- 
ly confounded poor Elizabeth, 

I donT know very much about such matters,^'’ said she, 
deprecatingly; but I’m sure, ma’am, you ought to keep your- 
self quiet, and I wouldn’t hate the poor little baby if I were 
you. It may be a very nice httle thing, and turn out a great 
comfort to you. ” 

Mrs. Ascott lifted her heavy eyes to the kindly, sympathetic, 
womanly face — thorough woman, for, as Ehzabeth went on, 
her heart warmed with the strong instinct which comes almost 
of itself. 

Think, to have a tiny little creature lying here beside you; 
something your very own, with its pretty face looking so inno- 
cent and sweet at you, and its pretty fingers touching you. ” 
Here Elizabeth’s voice quite faltered over the picture she had 
drawn. “ Oh, ma’am. I’m sure you would be so fond of it. ” 

Human nature is strong. This cold, selfish woman, living 
her forty years without any strong emotion, marrying without 
love, and reaping, nob in contrition, but angry bitterness, the 
certain pimishment of such a marriage, even this woman was 
not proof against the glorious mystery of maternity, wliich 
should make every daughter of Eve feel the first sure hope of 
her first-born child to be a sort of divine annunciation. 

Mrs. Ascott lay listening to .Elizabeth. Gradually through 
her shut eyelids a few quiet tears began to flow. 

Do you mind me talking to you this way, ma’am?” 

‘‘Ho, no! Say what you like. I’m glad to have anybody 
to speak to. Oh, I am a very miserable woman!” 

Strange that Selina Ascott, should come to betray, and to 
Elizabeth Hand, of all people, that she was a “ miserable 
woman.” But circumstances bring about unforeseen con- 
fidences; and the confidence once given is not easily recalled. 
Apparently the lady did not wish to recall it. In the solitude 


204 


MISTRESS ATO MAID. 


of her splendid house, in her total want of all female compan- 
ionship — for she refused to have her sisters sent for— ‘‘ 
would only insult them, and 1^11 not have my family in- 
sulted — poor Selina clung to her old servant as the only 
comfort she had. 

During the dreary months that followed, when, , during the 
long, close summer days, the sick lady scarcely stirred from 
hei" bedroom, and, fretful, peevish, made the very most of 
what to women in general are such patiently borne and sacred 
sufferings, Elizabeth was her constant attendant. She hu- 
mored all her whims, endured all her ill tempers, cheered her 
in her low spirits, and was, in fact, her mistress’s sole com- 
panion and friend. • 

This position no one disputed with her. It is not every 
woman who has, as Miss Leaf used to say of Elizabeth, ‘‘a 
genius for nursing;” and very few patients make nursing a 
labor of love. The whole hous^old were considerably re- 
lieved by her taking a responsibility for which she was so well 
fitted and so little envied. Even ' Mr. Ascott, who, when his 
approaching honors could no longer be concealed from him, 
became for the nonce a most attentive husband, and succumbed 
dutifully to every fancy his wife entertained, openly expressed 
his satisfaction in Elizabeth, and gave her one or two bright 
golden guineas in earnest of his gratitude. 

How far she 'herself appreciated her new and important 
position; whether her duties were done from duty, or pity, or 
that determined self -devotedness which some women are always 
ready to carry out toward any helpless -thing that needs them, 
I can not say, for she never told. Kot even to Miss Hilary, 
who at last was permitted to come and pay a formal visit; nor 
to Tom Cliffe, whom she now saw very rarely, for her mis- 
tress, with characteristic selfishness, .would hardly let her out 
of her sight for half an hour. 

Tom at first was exceedingly savage at this; by degrees he 
got more reconciled, and met his sweetheart now and then for 
a few minutes at the area gate, or wrote her long poetical 
letters, which he confided to 'some of her fellow-servants, who 
thereby got acquainted with their secret. But it mattered 
dittle, as Elizabeth had faithfully promised that, when her 
mistress’s trial was over, and everything smooth and happy, 
she would marry Tom at pnce. So she took the jokes below 
stairs with great composure, feeling, indeed, too proud and 
content to perplex herself much about anything. 

[Nevertheless, her life was not easy, for Mrs. Ascott was very 
difficult to manage. She resisted angrily all the personal sac- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


2or> 

rifices entailed by impending motherhood^, and its terrors and 
forebodings used to come over hei* — j)oor weak woman that 
she was I — in a way that required all Elizabeth's reasonings to 
counteract, and all her self-control to hide the presentiment of 
evil, not unnatural under the circumstances. 

Yet sometimes poor Mrs. Ascott would take fits of pathetic 
happiness, when she busied herself eagerly over the prepara- 
tions for the new-comer; would make Elizabeth take out, over 
and over again, the little clothes, and examine them with 
cliildish delight. Sometimes she would gossip for hours over 
the blessing that was sent to her so- late in life — half regretting 
that it had come so late; that she should be almost an old 
woman before her little son or daughter was grown up. 

“ Still, I may live to see it, you know: to have a pretty girl 
to take on my arm into a ball-room, or a big fellow to send to 
college: the Leafs always went to college in old times. He 
shall be .Henry Leaf Ascott, that I am determined on; and if 
Ik’s a girl, perhaps I may call her Johanna. My sister would 
like it— wouldn^t she?^^ 

For more and more, in the strange softening of her nature, 
did Selina go back to the old ties. 

1 am not older than my mother was when Hilary was 
born. She died, but that was because of trouble. Women do 
not necessarily die in child-birth even at forty; and in twenty 
years more I shall only be sixty — not such a very old woman. 
Besides, mothers never are old; at least not to their children. 
DonH you think so, Elizabeth 

And Elizabeth answered as she best could. She too, out of 
sympathy or instinct, was becoming wondrous wise. 

But I am aware all this will be thought very uninteresting, 
except by women and^mothers. Let me hasten on. 

By degrees, , as Mrs. Ascott^s hour approached, a curious 
tranquillity and even gentleness came over her. Her fretful 
dislike of seeing any face about her but Elizabethans became 
less. She even endured her husband^s company for an hour of 
an evening, and at last humbled her pride enough to beg him 
to invite her sisters to Bussell Square from Saturday to Mon- 
day, the only time when Hilary could be spared. 

“ For we don^^t know what may happen,'’^ said she to him, 
rather seriously. 

And though he answered, Oh, nonsense!^ ^ and desired her 
to get such ridiculous fancies out of her head, still he consent- 
ed, and himself wrote to Miss Leaf, giving the formal invita- 
tion. 

The three sisters spent a happy time together, and Hilary 


^06 MISTEESS AKD 

made some highly appreciated family jokes about the hand- 
some Christmas box that Selina was going to be so kind as to 
give them, and the small probability that she would have much 
enjoyment of the Christmas dinner to which Mr. Ascott, in the 
superabundance of his good feeling, had invited his sisters-in- 
law. The baby, blessed innocent! seemed to have softened 
down all things — as babies often do. 

Altogether, it was with great cheerfulness, affectionateness, 
and hope that they took leave of . Selina; she, with unwonted 
consideration, insisting that the carriage should convey them 
all the way to Richmond. 

‘‘ And, she said, perhaps some of these days my son, if 
he is a son, may have the pleasure of escorting his aunts home. 
I shall certainly call him ' Henry Leaf,^ and bring him up to 
be in every way a credit to our family. 

When the ladies were away, and Mrs. Ascott had retired to 
bed, it was still only nine o^ clock,. and a bright moonlight 
night. Elizabeth thought she could steal down-stairs and try 
to get a breath of fresh air round the square. Her long con- 
« finement made her almost sick sometimes for a sight of the 
outer world, a sight of — ^let me tell the entme truth — her own 
faithful Tom. 

She had not seen him now for fourteen days, and though his 
letters were very nice and exceedingly clever, still she craved 
for a look at his face, a grasp of his hand, perhaps even a kiss, 
long, and close, and tender, such as he would sometimes insist 
upon giving her, in spite of all policemen. His love for her, 
demonstrative as was liis nature, had become to this still, 
quiet girl inexpressibly sweet — far sweeter than she knew. • 

It was a clear winter night, and the moon went climbing 
over the fleecy white clouds in a way that made beauty even in 
Russell Square. Elizabeth looked up at the sky, and thought 
how Tom would have enjoyed it, and wished he were beside 
her, and was so glad to think he would soon be beside her 
always, with all his humors and weaknesses, all his little cross- 
nesses and complainings; she could put up with all, and be 
happy through all, if only she had him with her and loving her. 

His love for her, though fitful and fanciful, was yet so warm 
and real that it had become a necessity of her life. As he 
always told her~especially after he had had one of his little 
quarrels with her — hers was to him. 

‘‘ Poor Tom, I wonder how he gets on without me! Well, 
it wonT be for long.'’^ 

And she wished she could have let liim know she was out 
here; that they might have had a chat for just ten miutes. ^ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 

Unconsciously she walked toward their usual trysting-place, 
a large, overhanging plane-tree on the Keppel Street corner of 
the square. Surely, surely, that could not be Tom! Quite 
impossible, for he was not alone. . Two people, a young man 
and a young woman, stood at the tryst, absorbed in conversa- 
tion ; evidently sweethearts, for he had one arm around her, 
and he kissed her unresisted several times. 

Elizabeth gazed, fascinated, almost doubting, the evidence of 
her own senses. For the young many’s figure was so excessive- 
ly like Tom^s. At length, with the sort of feeling that makes 
one go steadily up to a shadow »by the road-side, some ugly 
specter that we feel sure, if we stare it out, will prove to be a 
mere imagination, she walked deliberately up to and past these 
‘‘sweethearts.^^ 

They did not see her; they were far too much occupied with 
one another; but she saw them, and saw at once that it was 
Tom, Tom^s own self, and with him her fellow-servant Esther. 

People may write volumes on jealousy, and volumes will still 
remain to be written. It is,, next to remorse for guilt, f he 
sharpest, sorest, most maddening torment that human nature 
can endure. 1 

We may sit and gaze from the boxes at our “ Gthellos and 
“ Biancas;^'’ we may laugh at the silly heart-burnings between 
Cousin Kate and Cousin Lucy in the ball-room, or the squabbles 
of Mary and SaUy hi the kitchen over the gardener^s lad, but 
there’ the thing remains. A man can not make love to two 
women, a woman can not coquette with two men, without 
causing in degree that horrible . agony, cruel as death, which is 
at the root of half the tragedies, and the cause of half the 
crimes of this world. 

The complaint comes in different forms; sometimes it is a 
case of slow poisoning, or of ordeal by red-hot irons, which, 
though not fatal, undermines the whole character, and burns 
ineffaceable scars into the soul. And people take it in various 
ways — some fiercely, stung by a sense of wounded self-love ; 
others haughtily: 

“ Pride’s a safe robe, I’ll wear it; but no rags.” 

Others, again, humble, self-distrustful natures, whose only 
pride came through love, have nothing left them except rags. 
In a moment all their thin robes of happiness are torn off; they 
stand shivering, naked, and helpless before the blasts of the 
bitter world. 

This was Elizabeths case. After the first instant of stunned 
bewilderment and despair she took it all quite naturally, as if 


m 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


it were a thing which she ought all along to have known was 
sure to happen, and which was no more than she expected and 
deserved. 

She . passed the couple, still unobserved b j them, and then 
walked round the other side of the square deliberately home. 

I am not going to make a tragic heroine of this poor servant- 
girl. Perhaps, people may say, there is nothing tragic about 
the incident. Merely a plain, quiet, old-fashioned woman, 
who is so foolish as to like a handsome young swain, and to 
believe in him, and to be surprised when he deserts her for a 
pretty girl of eighteen. All- quite after the way things go on 
in the world, especially in the servant-world; and the best she 
can do is to get over it, or take another sweetheart as quickly 
as possible. A very common story after all, and more of a 
farce than a tragedy. 

But there are some farces which, if you look underneath the 
surface, have a good many of the elements of tragedy. 

I shall neither paint Elizabeth tearing her own hair nor 
Esther^s, nor going raging about the square in moonlight in 
an insane fit of jealousy. She was not given to fits under 
any circumstances or about anything. All she felt went deep 
down into her heart, rooted itself, and either blossomed or 
cankered there. 

On this night she, as I said, walked round' the square to her 
home, then quietly went upstairs to her garret, locked the door, 
and sat down upon her bed. 

She might have sat there for an hour or more, her bonnet 
and shawl still on, without stirring, without crying, altogether 
cold and hard like a stone, when she fancied she .heard her 
mistresses bell ring, and mechanically rose up and went down- 
stairs to listen. Nothing wa ^ wanted, so she returned to her 
garret and crept to bed in the dark. 

When, soon afterward, Esther likewise came up to bed, Eliza- 
beth pretended to be asleep. Only once, taking a stealthy 
glance at the pretty girl who stood combing her hair at the 
looking-glass, she was conscious of a sick sense of repulsion, a 
j)ain like a knife running through her at sight of the red young 
lips which Tom had just been kissing, of the light figure which 
he had clasped as he used to clasp her. But she never spoke, 
not one word. 

Half an hour, after she was roused by the nijrse coming to 
her bedside. ^ Mrs. Ascott was very ill, and was calling for 
Elizabeth. Soon the whole establishment ^v'a3 in confusion, 
and in the sharp struggle between birth and death Pfiizabeth 
had no time to think of anything but her mistress. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


209 


Contrary to every expectation, all ended speedily and hap- 
pily; and before he went off to thQ city next* day, the master of 
the house, who, in the midst of his anxiety and felicity, had 
managed to secure a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, 
had the pleasure of sending off a special messenger to the 
Times " office with the notification, ‘‘The Lady of Peter 
Ascott, Esq., of a son and heir," 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

A fortnight's time rather increased than diminished the 
excitement on the event at RusseU Square. 

Never was there such a wonderful baby, and never was there 
such a fuss made over it. Unprejudiced persons might have 
called it an ugly, weakly little thing; indeed, at first there were 
such apprehensions of its dying that it had been baptized in a 
great hurry, “ Henry Leaf Ascott," according to the mother's 
desire, which in her critical position nobody dared to thwart. 
Even at th-e end of fourteen days the “ son and heii* " was 
still a puling, sickly, yellow-faced baby. But to tlie^ mother 
it was everything. 

From the moment she heard its first cry Mrs. Ascott's whole 
nature seemed to undergo a change. Her very eyes — those 
cold blue eyes of Miss Selina's — took a depth and tenderness 
whenever she turned to look at the little bundle that lay beside 
her. She never wearied of touching the tiny hands and feet, 
and wondering at them, and showing — to every one of the 
household who was favored with ar sight of it — “ my baby," as 
if it had been a miracle of the universe. She was so unuttera- 
bly happy and j)roud. 

Elizabeth, too, seemed not a little proud of the baby. To 
her arms it had first been committed; she had stood by at its 
first wasliing and dressing, and had scarcely left it or her mis- 
tress since. Nurse, a very grand personage, had been a little 
jealous of her at first, but soon grew condescending, and made 
great use of her in the sick-room, alleging that such an exceed- 
ingly sensible young person, so quiet and steady, was almost as 
good as a middle-aged married woman. Indeed, she once asked 
Elizabeth if she was a widow, since she looked as if she had 
“seen trouble;" and was very much surprised to learn she 
was single, and only twenty-three years old. 

Noboily else took any notice of hei*. Even Miss Hilary was 
so engrossed by her excitement and delight over the baby that 
she only observed^ “ Elizabeth, you look rather wornrout; this 


210 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


has been a trying time for you. And Elizabeth had just an- 
swered Yes — no more. 

During the fortnight she had seen nothing of Tom. He had 
written her a short note or two, and the cook told her he had 
been to the kitchen door several times asking for her, but, 
being answered that she was with her mistress upstairs, had 
gone away. 

In the sulks, most like, though he didn^t look it. He^s a 
pleasant-spoken young man, and Fm sure I wish you luck with 
him,'’’ said cookie, who, like all the other servants, was now 
exceedingly civil to Elizabeth. 

Her star had risen; she was considered in the household a 
most fortunate woman. It was shortly understood that nurse 
— majestic nurse, had spoken so highly of her that at the 
month’s end the baby was to be given entirely into her charge, 
with, of course, an almost fabulous amount of wages. 

Unless,” said Mrs. Ascott, when this proposition was 
made, suddenly recurring to a fact which seemed hitherto to 
have quite slipped from her miiid — “ unless you are still will- 
ing to get married, and think you would be happier married. 
In that case I won’t hinder you. But it would be such a com- 
fort to me to keep you a little longer.” 

Thank you, ma’am,” answered Elizabeth, softly, and 
busied herself with walking baby up and down the room, hush- 
ing it on her shoulder. If in the dim light tears fell on its 
puny face, God help her, poor Elizabeth! 

Mrs. Ascott made such an excllent recovery that in three 
weeks’ time nobody was thei least anxious about her, and Mr. 
Ascott arranged to start on 'a business journey to Edinburg, 
promising, however, to be back in three days for the Christmas 
dinner, which was to be a grand celebration. Miss Leaf and 
Miss Hilary were to appear thereat in their wedding-dresses; 
and Mrs. Ascott herself took the most vital interest in tfohanna’s 
having a new cap for the occasion. Nay, she insisted upon 
ordering it from her own milliner, and having it made of the 
most beautiful lace — the sweetest ” old-lady’s cap that could 
possibly be invented. 

Evidently this wonderful baby had opened all hearts, and 
drawn every natural tie closer. Selina, lying on the sofa, in 
her graceful white wrapper, and lier neat close cap, looked so 
young, so jiretty, and, above all, so exceedingly gentle and 
motherly, that her sisters’ hearts were full to overflowing. 
Tlitw acknowledged that liappiness, like misery, was often 
brought about in a fashion totally miforeseen and incredible. 
Who woidd have thought, for instance, on that wretched night 


MISTRESS AKE MAID. 


m 


when Mr. Ascott came to Hilary at Kensington;, or o]i that 
dreary, heartless wedding-day, that they should ever have been 
sitting in Selina’s room so merry and comfortable, admiring 
the baby, and on the fiiendliest terms with baby’s j^apa? 

“ Papa ” is a magical word, and let married people have , 
fallen ever so wide asmider, the thought ‘‘ My child’s mother,” 

“ my baby’s father,” must in some degree bridge the gulf be- 
tween them. When Peter Ascott was seen stooping, awkward- 
ly enough, over his son’s cradle, poking his dumpy fingers into 
each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, half -investigating manner, 
as if he had wondered how it had all come about, but, on the 
whole, was rather pleased than otherwise, the good angel of the 
household might have stood by and smiled, trusting that the 
ghastly skeleton therein might in time crumble away 'into 
harmless dust, under the sacred touch of infant fingers. 

The husband and wife took a kindly, even affectionate leave 
of one another. Mrs. Ascott called him “ Peter,” and begged 
him to take care of himself, and wrap up well that cold night. 
And when he was gone, and her sisters also, she lay on her 
sofa with her eyes open, thinking. What sort of thoughts' 
they were, whether repentant or hopeful, solemn or tender, 
whether they might have passed away and been forgotten, or 
how far they might have influenced her life to come, none 
knew, and none ever did know. 

When there came a knock at the door, and a message for 
Elizabeth, Mrs. Ascott suddenly overheard it and turned 
round. 

Who is wanting you — Tom Cliffe? Isn’t that the young 
man you are to be married to? Go down to him at once. And 
stay, Elizabeth, as it’s such a bitter night, take him for half an 
hour into the housekeeper’s room. Send her upstairs, and 
tell her I wished it, though I don’t allow ‘ followers. ’ ” 

Thank you, ma’am,” said Elizabeth once more, and 
obeyed. She must speak to Tom some time, it might as well 
be done to-night as not. Without pausing to think, she went 
down with dull, heavy steps to the housekeeper’s room. 

Tom stood there alone. He looked so exactly his own old 
self, he came forward to meet her so completely in his old 
familiar way, that for the instant she thought she must be un- 
der some dreadful delusion; that the moonlight night in the 
square must have been all a dream; Esther, still the silly Jittle 
Esther, whom Tom had often heard of and laughed. at; and 
^J’om, her own Tom, who loved nobody but her. 

Elizabeth, what an age it is since I’ve had a sight of you!” 


m 


MISTRESS AMT> MAIt/. 


But, though the manner was warm as ever, 

‘ ‘ In his tone 

A something smote her, as if Duty tried 

To mock the voice of Love, how long since flown,” 

and quiet as she stood, Elizabeth shivered in his arms. 

‘‘Why, what’s the matter? Aren’t you glad to see me? 
Give me another kiss, my girl, do!” ' 

He took it; and she crept away from him and sat down. 

“ Tom, I’ve got something to say to you, and I’d better say 
it at once.” 

“To be sure. ’Tisn’t any bad news from home, is it? 
Or” — looking uneasily at her— “ I haven’t vexed you, have 

“ Vexed me,” she repeated, thinking what a small, foolish - 
word it was to express what had happened and what she had 
been suffering. “No, Tom, not vexed me, exactly. But I 
want to ask you a question. Who was it that you stood talk- 
ing with, under our tree in the square, between nine and ten 
o’clock this night three weeks ago?” 

Though there was no anger in the voice, it was so serious 
and deliberate that it made Tom start. 

“ Three weeks ago; how nan I possibly tell?” 

“Yes, you can; for it was a fine moonlight night, and you 
stood there a long time. ” 

“Under the tree, talking to somebody? What nonsense! 
Perhaps it wasn’t me at all. ” 

“ It was, for I saw you. ” 

“ The devil you did!” muttered Tom. 

“ Don’t be angry, only tell me the plain truth. The young 
woman that was with you was our .Esther here, wasn’t she?” 

For a moment Tom looked altogether confounded. Then 
he tried to recover himself, and said, crossly, “ Well, and if it 
was, where’s the harm? Can’t a man be civil to a pretty girl 
without being called over the coals in this way?’ ’ 

Elizabeth made no answer, at least not immediately. At 
last she said, in a very gentle, subdued voice, 

“ Tom, are you fond of Esther? You would not kiss her if 
you were not fond of her. Do you like her as — as you used to 
like me?” 

And she looked right up into his eyes. Hers had no re- 
proach in them, only a piteous entreaty, ‘the last clinging to a 
hope which she knew to be false. . 

“ Like Esther? Of course I do. She’s a nice sort of girl, 
and we’re very good friends. ” 

“ Toni; a man can’t be ‘ friends,’ in that sort of way, with 


MISTRESS ATO MAID. 


213 


a pretty girl of eighteen, when he is going to be married, to 
somebody else. At least, in my mind, he ought not.’’’ 

Tom laughed in a confused manner. “ I say, youh’e jeal- 
ous, and you’d better get over it.” 

Was she jealous? was it all fancy, folly? Did Tom stand 
there; true as steel, without a feeling in his heart that she did 
not share, without a hope in which she was not united, holding 
her, and preferring her, with that individuality and unity of 
love which true love ever gives and exacts, as it has a right to 
exact? 

Not that poor Elizabeth reasoned in this way, but she felt 
the thing by instinct without reasoning. 

Tom,” she said, tell me outright, just as if I was some- 
body else, and had never belonged to you at all, do you love 
Esther Martin?” 

Truthful people enforce truth. Tom might be fickle, but he 
was not deceitful; he could not look into Elizabeth’s eyes and 
tell her a deliberate lie; somehow he dared not. . 

Well, then — since you will have it out of me — I think I 
do.” ■ 

So Elizabeth’s ship went down.” It might have been a 
very frail vessel, that nobody in their right senses would have 
trusted any treasure with, still she did; and it was all she had, 
and it went down to the bottom like a stone. 

It is astonishing how soon the sea closes, over this sort of 
wreck, and how quietly people take — when they must take, 
and there is no more disbelieving it— the truth which they 
would have given their lives to prove was an impossible lie. 

For some minutes Tom stood facing the fire, and Elizabeth 
sat on her chair opposite without speaking. Then she took off 
her brooch, the only love-token he had given her, and but it 
into his hand. 

AVhat’s this for?” asked he, suddenly. 

“You know. You’d better give it. to Esther. It’s Esther, 
not me, you must marry now.” 

And the thought of Esther, giddy, fiirting, useless Esther, 
as Tom’s wife, was almost more than she could bear. The 
sting of it put even into her crushed humility a certain honest 
self-assertion. 

“ I’m not going to blame you, Tom, but I think I’m as good 
as she. I’m not pretty, I know, nor lively, nor young — at least 
I’m old for my age; but I was worth something. You should 
jiot have served me so. ” 

Tom said, the usual excuse, that he “couldn’t help it.” 


^14 


MISTRESS AKD MAH). 


And suddenly turning rounds he begged her to forgive him, 
and not forsake him. 

She forsake Tom! Elizabeth almost smiled. 

“ I do forgive you; I/m not a bit angry with you. If I ever 
was I have got over it. 

That^s right. You’re a dear soul. ,Do you think I don’t 
like you, Elizabeth?” 

“ Oh, yes,” she said, sadly, “ I dare say you do, a little, in 
spite of Esther Martin. But that’s not my way of liking, and 
I couldn’t stand it. ” 

^MVhat couldn’t you stand?” ^ 

“ Your kissing me to-day, and another girl to-morrow; your 
telling me I was everything to you one week, and saying ex- 
actly the same thing to another girl the next. It would be 
hard enough to bear if we were only friends, but as sweet- 
hearts, as husband and wife, it would be impossible. No, 
Tom, I tell you the truth, I could hot- stand it.’’ 

She spoke strongly, unhesitatingly, and for an instant there 
flowed out of her soft eyes that wild, fierce spark, latent even 
in these quiet humble natures, which is dangerous to meddle 
with. 

Tom did not attempt it. He'felt^all was over. Whether he 
liad lost or gained — whether he was glad or soriy, he hardly 
knew. 

I’m not going to take this back, anyhow,” he said, ‘‘ fid- 
dling ” with the brooch; and then going up to her, he. at- 
tempted, with trembling hands, to refasten it in her collar. 

The familiar action, his contrite look, were too much. .Peo- 
ple who have once loved one another, though the love is dead 
(for love can die), are not able to bury it all at once, or if they 
do, its pale ghost will still come knocking at the door of their 
hearts, ‘‘ Lekme in, let me in!” 

Elizabeth ought, I know, in proper feminine dignity, to have 
bade Tom farewell without a glance or a touch. But she did 
not. When he had fastened her brooch she looked up in his 
familiar face a sorrowful, wistful, lingering look, and then 
clmig about his neck: 

“ Oh, Tom, Tom, I was so fond of you!” 

And Tom mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her many 
times, and even felt his old affection returning, making him 
half oblivious of Esther; but mercifully— for love rebuilt upon 
lost faith is like a house founded upon sands — the door opened, 
and Esther herself came in. 

Laughing, smirking, pretty Esther, who, thoughtless as she 
was, had yet the sense to draw back when she saw them. 


MISTRESS ATO MAID. 515 

Come here^ Esther Elizabeth called, imperatively; and 
she came, 

Esther, IVe given up Tom; you may take him if he wants 
you. Make him a good wife, and ITl forgive you. If not — 

She could not say another word. She shut the door upon 
them, and crept upstairs, conscious only of one thought — if 
she only could get away from them, and never see either of 
their faces any more! 

And in this Fate was kind to her, though in that awful way 
in which Fate — say rather Providence — often works; cutting, 
with one sharp blow, some knot that our poor, feeble, mortal 
fingers have been long laboring at in vain, or making that 
which seemed impossible to do the most natural, easy, and only 
thing to be done. 

How strangely often in human life one woe doth tread 
upon the other^s heel!^^ How continually, while one of those 
small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted 
within, the actors are called upon to meet some other tragedy 
from without, so that external energy counteracts inward emo- 
tion, and holy sympathy with another's sufferings stifles all 
personal pain. That truth about sorrows coming “ in bat- 
talions may have a divine meaning in it — may be one of those 
mysterious laws which * guide the universe — ^laws that we can 
only trace in fragments, and guess at the rest, believing, in 
deep” humility, that one day we shall “ know even as we are 
known. . 

Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had 
time to collect herself, and realize in her poor confused mind 
that she had indeed said good-bye to Tom, given him up and 
parted from him forever, she was summoned to her mistress’s 
room, there to hold a colloquy outside the door with the seri- 
ously perplexed nurse. 

One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, 
after all seems safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, 
and end by cariying away, remorseless, the young wife from 
her scarcely tasted bliss, the mother of many children from 
her close circle of happy duties and yearning loves. 

Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold, or been too 
much excited, or, in the overconfidence of her recovery, some 
slight neglect had occurred— some trifle which nobody thinks 
of till afterward, and wliich yet proves the fatal cause, the 

little pin ’’ that 

'<» “ Bores through the castle wall ” 

of mortal hojpe, and King Death enters in all his awful state. 


^16 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


Nobody kuew it or dreaded it; for, though Mrs. Ascott was 
certainly ill, she was not at first very ill; and there being no 
telegraphs in tjiose days, no one thought of sending for either 
her husband or her sisters. But that very hour, when Eliza- 
beth went up to her mistress, and saw the fiush on her cheek 
and the restless expression of her eye. King Death had secretly 
crept in at the door of the mansion in Bussell Square. 

The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. She 
said little, except once, looking up uneasily — 

I donT feel quite myself, Elizabeth.'’^ 

And when her servant soothed her in the long familiar way, 
telhhg her she would be better in the morning, she smiled con- 
tentedly, and turned to go to sleep. 

Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat be- 
hind the curtain, motionless, for an hour or more. 

Toward the middle of the night, when her baby was brought 
to her, and the child instinctively refused its natural food, and 
began screaming violently, Mrs. Ascott^s troubled look re- 
’ turned. 

“ What is the matter? What are you doing, nurse? I 
wonT be parted from my baby — I won’t, I say!” 

And when, to soothe her, the little thing was again put into 
her arms, and again turned from her, a frightful expression 
came into the mother’s face. 

Am I going to be ill? Is baby — ” 

She stopped; and as nurse determinately carried it away, she 
attempted no resistance, only followed it across the room with 
eager eyes. It was the last glimmer of reason there. From 
that time her mind began to wander, and before morning she 
was slightly dehrious. 

Still nobody apprehended danger. Nobody really knew any- 
thing about the matter except nurse, and she, with a selfish 
fear of being blamed for carelessness, resisted sending for the 
doctor till his usual hour of calling. In that large house, as 
in many other large houses,, everybody’s business was nobody’s 
business, and a member of the family, even the mistress, 
might easily be sick or dying in some room therein, while all 
things else went on just as usual; and no one was any the 
wiser. 

About noon even Elizabeth’s ignorance was roused up to the 
conviction that something was very wrong with Mrs. "Ascott 
and tliat nurse’s skill could not counteract it. Of her own re- 
gion sibility she smit, or rather she went to fetdi the doctor. 
He came; and his fiat threw the whole household into con- 
sternation. 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. ^17 

"Now they knew that the poor lady whose happiness had 
touched the very stoniest hearts in the establishment hovered 
upon the brink of the grave. Now all the women-servants, 
down to the little kitchen-maid with her dirty apron at her 
eyes, crept upstairs, one after the other, to the door of what 
had been such a silent, mysterious room, and listened, un- 
hindered, to the ravings that issued thence. Poor missis, 
and the ‘‘ poor little baby,'’ ^ were spoken of softly at the kitchen 
dinner-table, and confidentially sympathized over with inquir- 
ing trades-people at the area gate. A sense of awe and sus- 
pense stole over the whole house, gathering thicker hour by 
hour of that dark December day. 

When her mistress was first pronounced ‘‘ in danger, Ehza- 
beth, aware that there was no one to act but herself, had taken 
a brief opportunity to slip from the room and write two letters, 
one to her master in. Edinburgh, and the other to Miss Hilary. 
The first she gave to the footman to post; the second she 
charged him to send by special messenger to Eichmbnd. But 
he, being lazily inclined, or else thinking that, as the order 
was only given by Elizabeth, it was of comparatively little mo- 
ment, posted them both. So vainly did the poor girl watch 
and wait; neither Miss Leaf nor Miss Hilary came. 

By night Mrs. Ascotk’s delirium began to subside, but her 
strength was ebbing fast. Two physicians — three — stood by 
the unconscious woman, and pronounced that all hope was 
gone, if, indeed, the case had not been hopeless from the be- 
ginning. 

“ Where is her husband? Has she no relations — no mother 

or sisters?^^ asked the fasliionable' physician. Sir , 

touched by the sight of this poor lady dying alone, with only 
a nurse and a servant about her. '' If she has, they ought to 
be sent for immediately. 

Elizabeth ran down-stairs, and rousing the old butler from 
his bed, prevailed on him to start immediately in the carriage 
to bring back Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary. It would be mid- 
night before he reached Richmond; still it must be done. 

1^11 do it, my girl,"’ said he, kindly; “ and I’ll tell them 
as gently as I can. Never fear.” 

When Elizabeth returned to her mistress’s room the doctors 
were all gone, and nurse, standing at the foot of Mrs. Ascott’s 
bed, was watching her with the serious look which even a 
hireling or a stranger wears in the presence of th%t sight which, 
however familiar, never grows less awful — a fellow-creature 
slowly passing from this l2e into the life unknown. 

Elizabeth crept up to the other side. The change, inde- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


m 

scribable yet luimisUkable, which comes over a human face 
Avhen the warrant for its dissolution has gone forth;, struck 
her at once. 

Never yet had Ehzabeth seen death. Her father^s she did 
not remember, and among her few friends and connections 
none other had occurred. At twenty^-three years of age she 
was still ignorant of that solemn experience which every wom- 
an must go through some time, often many times, during her 
life. For it is to women that all look in their extreme hour. 
Very few men, even the tenderest-hearted, are able to watch 
by the last struggle and close the eyes of the dying. 

For the moment, as 'she glanced round the darkened room, 
and then at the still figure on the bed, Elizabeth's courage 
failed. Strong love might have overcome this fear — the nat- 
ural recoil of youth and life from coming into contact with 
death and mortality; but love was not exactly the bond between 
her and Mrs. Ascott. It was rather duty, pity, the tenderness' 
that would have sprung up in her heart toward anybody she 
had watched and tended so long. 

‘‘If she should die, die in the night, before Miss Hilary 
comes thought the poor girl, and glanced once more round 
the shadowy room, where she was now left quite alone. For 
nurse, thinking with true worldly wisdom of the preservation 
of the “ son and heir,’^ which was decidedly the most impor- 
tant question now, had stolen away, and was busy in the' next 
room, seeing various young women whom the doctors had sent, 
one of whom was to supply to the infant the place of the poor 
mother whom it would never know. 

There was nobody left but herself to watch this dying moth- 
er, so Elizabeth took her lot upon her, smothered down her 
fears, and sat by the bedside waiting for the least expression of 
returning reason in the sunken face, which was very quiet 
now. 

Consciousness did return at last, as the doctors had said it 
would. Mrs. Ascottt opened her eyes; they wandered from 
side to side, and then she said, feebly, 

“ Ehzabeth, whereas my baby?'^ 

What Elizabeth answered she never could remember; per- 
haps nothing, or her agitation betrayed her, for Mrs. Ascott 
said again, 

“ Elizabeth, am I going to — to leave my baby?^^ 

Some people might have considered it best to reply with a lie 
—the frightened, cowardly lie that is so often told at death-beds 
to the soul passing direct to its God. But this girl could not 
and dared not. 


MISTRESS AIsD AfAlD. 


219 


Leaning over her .mistress, she whispered as softly as she 
could, choking down the tears that might have disturbed the 
peace which, mercifully, seemed. to have come with dying, 

“ Yes, you are going very soon — to God. He will watch 
over baby, and give him back to you again some day quite 
safe.^’ 

‘‘WillHe?^^ 

The tone was submissive, half inquiring, like that of a child 
learning something it had never learned before — as Selina was 
now learning. Perhaps even those three short weeks of 
motherhood had power so to raise her "whole nature that she 
now gained the composure with which even the weakest soul 
can sometimes meet death, and had grown not unworthy of the 
dignity of a Christian's dying. 

Suddenly she shivered. am afraid; I never thought of 
— this. Will nobody come and speak .to me?" 

Oh, how Elizabeth longed for Miss Hilary, for anybody, who 
would have known what to say to the dying woman; who per- 
haps, as her look and words implied, till this hour had never 
thought of dying. Once it crossed the servant's mind to send 
for some clergyman; but she knew none, and was aware that 
Mrs. Ascott did not either. She had no superstitious feehng 
that any clergyman would do, just to give a sort of spiritual 
extreme unction to the departing sot3. Her own religious 
faith was of such an intensely personal, silent kind, that she 
did not believe in any good to be derived from a strange gen- 
tleman coming and praying by the bedside of a stranger, re- 
peating set sayings with a set coimtenance, and going away 
again. And yet with that instinct, which comes to almost 
every hifman soul, fast departing, Mrs. Ascott's white lips 
whispered, ‘ ‘ Pray. ' ' 

Elizabeth had no words except those which Miss Leaf used to 
say night after night in the little parlor at Stowbury. She 
knelt do-wn, and in a trembling voice repeated in her mistress's 
ear, Our father which art in heaven," to the end. 

After it Mrs.^ Ascott lay very quiet. At length she said. 

Please — bring— my — ^baby. " It had been from the first, an<l 
was to the last, “ my " baby. 

The small face was laid close to hers, that she might kiss it. 

‘‘ He looks well; he does not miss me much yet, poor little 
fellow!" And the strong natural agony came upon her, con- 
quering even the weakness of her last hour. Oh, it's hard, 
hard! ^ Will nobody teach my baby to remember me?" 

And then lifting herself on her elbow she caught hold of 
nurse. 


220 


MISTBESS AN1> 31 AID. 


Tell Mr. Ascott that Elizabeth i& to take care of baby. 
Promise, Elizabeth. Johanna is old — ^Hilary may be marrM 
— you will take care of my baby?’^ 

“ I will — as long as I live/" said Elizabeth Hand. 

She took the child in her arms, and for almost another hour 
stood beside, the bed thus, until nurse whispered, ‘‘ Carry it 
away; its mother doesn"t know it now. "" 

But she did; for she feebly moved her fingers as if in search 
of sometliing. Baby was still asleep, but Elizabeth contrived, 
by kneeling down close to the bed, to put the tiny hand under 
those cold fingers; they closed immediately upon it, and re- 
mained so till the last. 

When Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary came m Elizabeth was 
still kneeling there, trjdng softly to take the little hand away; 
for the baby had wakened and began its piteous wail. But it 
did not disturb the mother now. 

Poor Selina "" was no more. Nothing of her was left to 
her child except the name of a mother. It may have been 
better so. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“IN MEMORY OF 

SELINA, 

THE BELOVED VTIFE OP PETER ASCOTT, ESQ., 

OP RUSSELL SQUARE, LONDON, 

AND DAUGHTER OP 
THE LATE HENRY LEAF, ESQ., 

OP THIS TOWN, 

DIED DECEMBER 24 , 1839 , 

AGED 41 YEARS.” 

Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had 
met the eyes of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, daz- 
zlingly white marble monument, the first that was placed in 
the church-yard of the new church. 

What motive induced Mr. Ascott to inter his wife here — 
whether it was a natural wish to lay her, and some day lie 
beside her, in their native- earth; or the less creditable desire 
of showing how rich he had become, and of joining Ins once 
humble name, even on a tombstone, with ojie of the oldest 
names in the annals of Stowbury — nobody could find out. 

Prpbably nobody cared. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


221 

The Misses Leaf were content that he should do as he 
pleased in the matter: he had shown strong but not exag- 

f erated grief at his loss; if any remorse mingled therewith, 
elina^s sisters happily did liot know' it. Nobody ever did 
know the full history of tilings except Elizabeth, and she kept 
it to herself. So the family skeleton was buried quietly in Mrs. 
Ascott^s grave. 

Peter Ascott showed in his coarse fashion much sympathy 
and consideration for his wife^s sisters. He had them staying 
in the house till a week after the funeral was over, and provid- 
ed them with the deepest and handsomest momning. He 
even, in a formal way, took comisel with them as to the carry- 
ing out of Mrs. Ascott^s wishes, and the retaining of Elizabeth 
in charge of the son and heir, which was accordingly settled. 
And then they went back to their old life at Eichmond, and 
the widower returned to his solitary bachelor ways. He looked 
as usual; went to and from the city as usual; and his brief 
married life seemed to have passed away from him like a dream. 

Not altogether a dream. Gradually he began to wake up 
to the consciousness of an occasional child^s cry iii the house-— 
that large, silent, dreary house, where he was once more the 
sole, solitary master. Sometimes, when he came in from 
church on Sundays, he would mount another flight of stairs, 
walk into the nursery at the top of the house, and stare with 
distant' curiosity at the little creature in Elizabeth's arms, pro- 
nounce it a fine child, and did her great credit and walk 
down' again. He never seemed to consider it as his child, this 
poor old bachelor of so many years^ standing; he had out- 
grown apparently all sense of the aflections or the duties of a 
father. IVTiether they ever would come into him; whether, 
after babyhood was passed, he would begin to take an interest 
in the little creature who throve and blossomed into beauty — 
which, as if watched by guardian angels, dead mothers'’ child- 
ren seem often to do — was a source of earnest speculation to 
Elizabeth. 

In the meantime he treated both her and the baby with ex- 
treme consideration, allowed her to do just as she liked, and 
gave her indefinite sums of money to expend upon the niusery. 

When summer came, and the doctor ordered change of air, 
Mr. Ascott consented to her suggestion of taking a lodging for 
herself and baby near baby's amits at Eichmond; only desiring 
that the lodging should be as handsome as could be secured, 
and that every other Sunday she should bring up his son to 
spend the day at Eussell Square. 

And so, during the long summer months, tlie motherless 


222 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


cMid, in its deep mourning — which looks so pathetic on a very 
.young baby— -might be seen carried about in Elizabeth's arms 
everywhere. When, after the first sis weeks, the wet-nurse 
left— in fact, two or three wet-nurses successively were 
abolished — she. took little Henry solely under her own charge. 
She had comparatively small experience, but she had common 
sense, and the strong motherly instinct which comes by nature 
to some women. Besides, her whole soul was wrapped up in 
this little child. 

From the hour when, even with her mistress d3fing before 
her eyes, Elizabeth had felt a strange thrill of comfort in the 
new duty which had come into her blank life, she took to this 
duty as women only can whose life has become a blank. She 
received the child as a blessing sent direct from God; by un- 
conscious hands — for Mrs. Ascott knew notliing of what haji- 
pened; something that would heal her wounded heart, and 
make her forget Tom. 

And so it did. Women and mothers well know how engross- 
ing is the care of an infant; how each minute of the day is 
filled up with something to be done or thought of; so that 
“ fretting about extraneous things becomes quite impossible. 
How gradually the fresh life growing up and expanding puts 
the worn-out or blighted life into the background, and all the 
hopes and fancies cling around the small, beautiful present,- 
the evei^-developing, ever-marvelous mystery of a young child^s 
existence! Why it should be so we can only guess; but that it 
is so, many a wretched wife, many a widowed mother, many a 
broken-hearted, forlorn aunt, has thankfully proved. 

Elizabeth proved it likewise. She did not exactly lose all 
memory of her trouble, but it seemed lighter; it was swallowed 
up in this second passion of adopted motherhood. And so she 
sunk, quietly and at once, into the condition of a middle-aged 
woman, whose lifer's story — and her sort of woman have but 
one — was a mere episode, told and ended. 

For Esther had left and been married to Tom Cliff e within 
a few weeks of Mrs. Ascott^s funeral. Of course, the house- 
hold knew everything; but nobody condoled with Elizabeth. 
There was a certain stand-offishness about her v which made 
them hold their tongues. They treated her with much re- 
spect, as her new position demanded. She took this, as she 
took everything, with the grave quietness which was her fashion 
from her youth up; assumed her place as a confidential upper 
servant; dressed well, but soberly, like a, woman of forty, and’ 
was called Mrs. Hand.-''’ 

The only trace her “ disappointment '' left upon her was a 


MTSTRESS AKJ) MAID. 


22d 


slightly bitter way of speaking about men in general, and a 
dislike to any chatter about love affairs and matrimony. Her 
own story she was nevei- known to refer to in the most distant 
way except once. 

Miss Hilary — who, of course, had heard all, but delicately 
kept silence — one night, when little Henry was not well, re- 
mained in the lodgings on Eichmond Hill, and slept in the 
nursery, Elizabeth making up for herself a bed on tlie- floor 
close beside baby and cradle. In the dead of night the two 
women, mistress and maid, by some chance, said a few things 
to one another which never might have been said in the day- 
light, and which, by tacit consent, were never afterward re- 
ferred to by either, any more than if they had been spoken in 
a dream. 

Elizabeth told briefly, though not without emotion, all that 
had happened between herself and Tom, and how he was mar- 
ried to Esther Martin. And then both women went back, in 
a moralizing way, to the days when they had both been 

young at Stowhury, and how different hfe was from what 
they then thought and looked forward to — Miss Hilary and her 
“bower-maiden.^^ 

“ Yes,^^ answered the former, with a sigh, “ things are, in- 
deed, not as people fancy wEen they are girls. We dream, and 
dream, and think we see very far into the future, which no- 
body sees but God. I often wonder how my life will end. 

Elizabeth said, after a pause, “ I always felt sure you would 
be married. Miss Hilary. There was one person — is he still 
alive? Is he ever coming home?^^ 

“ I doiiT know.""^ 

“ I am sure he .was very fond of you. And he looked like a 
good man. 

“ He was the best man I ever knew. 

Tliis was all Miss Hilary said, and she said it softly and 
mournfully. She might never have said it at all; but it 
dropped from her unawares in the deep feeling of the moment, 
when her heart was tender over Ehzabeth^s own sad, simply- 
told story. Also because of a sudden and great darkness which 
had come over her own. 

Literally, she did not know whether Eobert Lyon Avere alive 
or dead. Two months ago his letters had suddenly ceased, 
without any explanation, liis last being exactly the same as the 
others — as frank, as warmly affectionate, as cheerful and brave. 

One solution to this was his possible coming home. But she 
did not, after careful reasoning on the subject, believe that 
hkely. She knew exactly his business relations with his em- 


m 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


plovers; that there was a fixed time for his return to England, 
Avhich nothing except the very strongest necessity could alter. 
Even in the chance of his health breaking, so as to incapacitate 
him for work, he should, he always said, have to go to the hills 
rather than take the voyage home. j)rematurely. And, in that 
case, he certainly would have informed his friends of his move- 
ments. There was nothing erratic, or careless, or eccentric 
about Eobert Lyon; he was a practical, business-like Scotch- 
man — far too cautious and too regular in all his habits to he 
guilty of those accidental negligences by which wanderers 
abroad sometimes cause such cruel anxieties to friends at 
home. 

Eor the same reason,* the other terrible possibility — his death 
— ^was not likely to have happened without their hearing of it. 
Hilary felt sure, with the strong confidence of love, that he 
would have taken every means to leave her some last word — 
some farewell token — which would reach her after he was gone, 
and comfort her with the assurance of what, living, he hafi 
never plainly told. Sometimes, when a wild terror of his death 
seized her, this settled conviction drove it back again. He 
must be living, or she would have heard. 

There was another interpretation of the silence, which many 
would have considered the most probable of all — ^he might be 
married. Hot deliberately, but suddenly; drawn into it by 
some of those impelling trains of circumstance which are the 
cause of so many marriages, especially with men; or impelled 
by one of those violent passions which occasionally seize on an 
exceedingly good man, fascinating him against his conscience, 

, reason, and will, until he wakes up to find himself fettered and 
ruined for life. Such ’ things do happen, strangely, pitifully 
often. The like might have happened to Eobert Lyon. 

Hilary did not actually believe it, but still her common sense 
told her that it was possible; She was not an inexperienced 
girl now; she looked on the world with the eyes of a woman of 
thirty; and though, thank Heaven! the romance had never 
gone out of her — the faith, and trust, and tender love — still it 
had sobered down a little. She knew it was quite within the 
bounds of possibility that a young man, separated from her for 
seven years, thrown into all kinds of circumstances and among 
all sorts of people, should have changed very much in himself, 
and, consequently, toward her; that, without absolute faith- 
lessness, he might suddenly have seen some other woman he 
liked better, and have married at once. Or if he came back 
unmarried— she had -taught herself to look this probability also 
steadily in the face— he might find the reality of her, Hilary 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


,225 

Leaf, different from his remembrance of her; and so, without 
actual falseness to the old true love, might not love her any 
more. 

These fears made her resolutely oppose Johanna^s wish to 
write to the house of business at Liverpool, and ask what had 
become of Mr. Lyon. It seemed like seeking after him, trying 
to hold him by the slender chain which he had never attempted 
to make any stronger, and which, already, he might have 
broken, or desired to break. 

She could not do it. Something forbade her; that some- 
thing in the inmost depths of a woman ^s nature which makes 
her feel her own value, and exact that she shall be sought; 
that, if her love be worth having, it is worth seeking; that, 
however dear a man may be to her, she refuses to drop into 
his mouth like an overripe peach from a garden wall. In her 
sharpest agony of anxiety concerning him, Hilary felt that she 
could not, on her part, take any step that seemed to compel 
love, or even friendship, from Eobert Lyon. It was not pride 
— she could hardly be called a proud woman — ^it was an innate 
sense of the dignity of that love which, as a free gift> is precious 
as ‘‘ much fine gold,^^ yet becomes the merest dross — utterly 
and insultingly poor — when paid as a debt of honor, or offered 
as a benevolent largess. 

And so, though oftentimes her heart felt breaking, Hilary 
labored on — sat the long day patiently at her desk, interested 
herself in the young people over whom she ruled, became Miss 
Balquidder'^s right hand in all sorts of schemes which that good 
woman was forever carrying out for the benefit of her fellow- 
creatures, and, at leisure times, occupied herself with Johanna, 
or with Elizabeth and the baby, trying to think it was a very 
beautiful and happy world, with love still in it, and a God of 
love ruling over it — only, only — 

Women are very humble in their cruelest pride. Many a 
day she felt as if she could have crawled a hundred miles in the 
dust, like some Catholic pilgrim, just to get one sight of 
Eobert Lyon. 

Autumn came — lovely, and lingering late. It was Novem- 
ber, and yet the air felt mild as May, and the sunshine had 
that peculiar genial brightness which autumnal sunshine alone 
possesses; even as, perhaps, late happiness has in it a holy calm 
and sweetness which no youthful ecstasy can ever boast. 

The day happened to be Hilary's birthday. She had taken 
a holiday, v/hich she, Jolianna, Elizabeth, and the baby had 
spent in Eichmond Park, watcliing the rabbits darting about 
under the brown fern, and the deer grazing contentedly hard, 


3^6 MISTRESS AND MATD. 

by. They had sat a long time under one of the oak-trees with 
which the park abounds, listening for the sudden drop, drop 
of an occasional acorn among the fallen leaves, or making 
merry with the child, as a healthy, innocent, playful cliild 
always can make good women merry, . « - - x 

Still Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of infant- 
hood, and had never occupied more than 1^ proper nepotal 
corner in Hilary ^s heart. She left liim chiefly to .Elizabeth, 
and to his aunt Johanna, in whom the grand-rQotherly charac- 
ter had blossomed out in full perfection. And when these two 
became engrossed in his infant majesty, Hilary sat a little 
apart, unconsciously folding her hands and fixing her eyes on 
vacancy, -becoming fearfully alive to the sharp truth that, of 
all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is the grief 
which most blights a woman^s life — say, rather, any human 
life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily 
endure passively. Y So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize 
the good hand of ^God therein. Why should He ordain Ipng- 
ings, neither-- selfish or unholy, which yet are never granted; 
tenderness which expends itself in vain; sacrifices! wffich ^re 
wholly, unneeded; and sufierings which seem quite thrown 
away? | That is, if we dared allege anything in the moral or in 
the material world, where so much loveliness, so much love, 
appear continually wasted, that it is really ‘‘thrown away.^^ 
We never know through what divine mysteries of compensation 
the Great Father of the universe may be carrying out His sub- 
lime plan; and those three words, “ God is love,^^ ought to 
contain, to every doubting soul, the solution of all things. 

As Hilary rose from under the tree there was a shadow on 
her sweet face, a hstless weariness in her movements, winch 
caught Johanna^s attention. Johanna had been very good to 
her child. When, do what she would, Hilary could not keep 
down fits of occasional dullness or impatience, it was touclung 
to see how this woman of over sixty years slipped from her due 
pedestal of honor and dignity, to be patient with her younger 
sister’s unspoken bitterness and incommunicable care. 

She now, seeing how restless Hilary was, rose when she rose, 
put her arm in hers, and accompanied her, speaking or silent, 
with quick steps or slow, as she chose, across the beautiful 
park, than which, perhaps, all England can not furnish a scene 
more thoroughly sylvan, thoroughly English. They rested on 
that high ground near the gate of Pembroke Lodge, where the 
valley of the Thames lies spread out lik^ a map, stretching 
miles and miles away in luxm-iant greenery. 

“ How beautiful! I wonder what a foreigner would think of 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 227 

tMs view? Or any one who had been long abroad? How in- 
expressibly sweet and home-like it would seem to him!'' 

Hilary turned sharply away, and Johanna saw at once what 
her words had implied. She felt so sorry, so vexed with her- 
self; but it was best to leave it alone. So they made their way 
homeward, speaking of something else; and then that happened 
which Johanna had been almost daily expecting would happen, 
though she dared not communicate her hopes to Hilary, lest 
they should prove fallacious. 

The two figures, both in deep mourning, might have attract- 
ed any one's attention; they caught that of a gentleman who 
was walking quickly, and looking about him as if in search of 
something. He passed them at a little distance, then repassed, 
then turned, holding out both his hands. 

Miss Leaf; I was sure it was you." 

Only the voice; everything else about him was so changed 
that Hilary herself would certainly have passed him in the 
street, that brown, foreign-looking, middle-aged man, nor 
recognized him as Robert Lyon. But for all that it was him- 
self; it was Robert Lyon. 

I^obody screamed, nobody fainted. People seldom do that 
in real life, even when a friend turns up suddenly from the 
other end of the world. They only hold out a warm hand, and 
look silently in one another's faces, and try to believe that all 
is real, as these did. 

Robert Lyon shook hands with both ladies, one after the 
other, Hilary last, then placed himself between them. 

“ Miss Leaf, will you take my arm?" 

The tone, the manner, were so exactly like himself, that in 
a moment all these intervening years seemed crushed into an 
atom of time. Hilary felt certain, morally and absolutely cer- ' 
tain, that, in spite of all outward change, he was the same 
Robert Lyon who had bade them all good-bye that Sunday . 
night in the parlor at Stowbury. The same, even in his love 
for herself, though he had simply drawn her little hand under 
his arm, and never spoken a single word. 

Hilary Leaf, down, secretly, on your heart's lowest knees, 
and thank God! Repent of all your bitternesses, doubts, and 
pains; be joyful, be joyful! But, oh, remember to be so 
humble withal. 

She was. As she walked silently along by Robert Lyon's 
side she pulled down her veil to hide the sweetest, most con- 
trite, most child-like tears. What did she desen^e, more than 
her neighbors, that she should be so very, very happy? And 
when, a good distance across the park she saw the dark solitary 


^28 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


figure of Elizabeth carrying baby, she quietly guided her com- 
panions into a different path, so as to avoid meeting, lest the 
sight of her happiness might in any way hurt poor Elizabeth. 

“ I only landed last night at Southampton,^^ Mr. Lyon ex- 
plained to Miss Leaf, after the fashion people have, at such 
meetings, of falling upon the most practical and uninteresting 
details. “ I came by the Overland Mail. It was a sudden 
journey. I had scarcely more than a few hours^ notice. The 
cause of it was some very unpleasant defalcations in our firm.'^^ 

Hilary might have smiled under any other circumstances; 
may be she did smile, and tease him many a time afterward, 
because the first thing he could find to talk about, after seven 
years absence, was defalcations in our firm.^' But now she 
listened gravely, and by and by took her part in the unimpor- 
tant conversation which always occurs after a meeting such as 
this. 

‘‘Were you going home. Miss Leaf? They told me at your 
house you were expected to dinner. May I come with you? for 
I have only a few hours to stay. To-night I must go on to 
Liverpool. 

“ But we shall hope to see you soon again?^^ 

“ I hope so. And I trust. Miss Leaf, that I do not intrude 
to-day ?^^ 

He said this with his Scotch shyness, or pride, or whatever it 
was; so like his old self, that it made somebody smile! But 
somebody loved it. Somebody lifted up to his face eyes of 
silent welcome; soft, sweet brown eyes, where never, since he 
knew them, had he seen one cloud of anger darken, one shadow 
of unkindness rise. 

. “ This is something to come home to/^ he said in a low 
voice, and ilot over lucidly. Ay, it was. 

“ I am by no means disinterested in the matter of dinner. 
Miss Leaf, for I have no doubt of finding good English roast 
beef and plum-pudding on your sister^ s birthday. Happy re- 
turns of the day. Miss Hilary. 

She was so touched by his remembering this, that, to hide 
it, she put on a spice of her old mischievousness, and asked 
him if he was aware how old she was. 

“Yes: you are thirty; I have known you for fifteen years. 

“ It is a long time,’^ said Johanna, thoughtfully. 

Johanna would not have been human had she not been a lit- 
tle thoughtful and silent on the way home, and had she not 
many times, out of the corners of her e3^es, sharply hivcstigated 
Mr. Kobert Lyon. 

He was much altered; there was no doubt of that. Seven 


MISTRESS Al^D MAID. 229 

years of Indian life would change anybody — take the youthful- 
ness out of anybody. It was so with Robert Lyon. When, 
coming into the parlor, he removed his hat, many ’ a white 
thread was visible in his hair, and, besides the spare, dried-up 
look which is always noticeable in people who have lived long 
in hot climates, there was an “old expression , in his face, 
indicating many a worldly battle fought and won, but not with- 
out leaving scars behind. 

Even Hilary, as she sat opposite to him at table, could not 
but feel that he was no longer a young man either in appear- 
ance or reality. 

We ourselves grow old, or older, without knowing it; but 
when we suddenly come upon the same fact in another, it 
startles us. Hilary had scarcely recognized how far she her- 
self had left her girlish days behind till she saw Robert Lyon. 

“ You think me very much changed.^^'’ said he, guessing by 
his curiously swift intuition of old what she was thinking of. 

“Yes, a good deal changed,^'’ she answered, truthfully, at 
Which he was silent. 

He could not read — perhaps no man^s heart cotild — all the 
emotion that swelled in hers as she looked at him, the love of 
her youth, no longer young. How the ghostly likeness of the 
former face gleamed out^under the hard, worn lines of the face 
that now was touching'lier with ineffable tenderness. Also, 
with solemn content came a sense of the entire indestructible- 
ness of that Jove which through all decay of alteration traces 
the ideal image still, clings to it, and cherishes it with a tenac- 
ity that laughs to scorn the grim dread of growing “ old. 

In his premature and not specially comely middle-age, in his 
gray hairs, in the painful, anxious, half -melancholy expression 
which occasionally flitted across his features, as if hfe had 
grown hard with him, Robert Lyon was a thousand times dearer 
to her, than when the world was all before them both in the 
early days at Stowbury. ^ , 

There is a great deal of sentimental nonsense talked about 
people having been “ young together.'’^ Not necessarily is that 
a bond. Many a tie formed in youth dwindles away and breaks off 
. naturally in maturer years. Characters alter, circumstances di- 
vide. No one will dare to allege that there may not be loves and 
friendships formed in middle life as dear, as close, as Arm as any 
of those of youth; perhaps, with some temperaments, infinitely 
more so. But when the two go together;^ when the calm elec- 
tion of maturity confirms the early instinct, and the lives have 
run parallel^ as it were, for many years, there can be no bond 


230 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


like that of those who say, as these two did, We were young 
together. 

He said so when, after dinner, he came and stood by the 
window where Hilary was sitting sewing. Johanna had just 
gone out of the room, whether intentionally or not this history 
can not avouch. Let us give her the benefit of the doubt; she 
was a generous woman. * 

During the three hours that Mr. Lyon had been with her, 
Hilary^ s first agitation had subsided. That exceeding sense of 
rest which she had always felt beside him— the sure index of 
people who, besides loving, are meant to guide, and help, and 
bless one another — ^returned as strong as ever- That deep 
affection which should miderlie all love revived and clung to 
him with a child-hke confidence, strengthening at every word 
he said, every familiar look and way. 

He was by no means so composed as she was, especially now 
when, coming up to her side and watching her hands moving 
for a minute or so, he asked her to tell hiin, a little more ex- 
plicitly, of what had happened to her since they parted. 

“ Things are rather different from what I thought and he 
glanced with a troubled air round the neat but very humbly 
furnished parlor. ‘‘ And about the shop?’^ 

‘ ‘ J ohanna told you. 

Yes; but her letters have been so few, so short — ^not that I 
could expect more. Still — ^now, if you will trust me, tell me 
all.^^ 

Hilary turned to him, her friend for fifteen yeai«. He was 
that if he was nothing more. And he had been very true; he 
deserved to be trusted. She told him, in brief, the history of 
the last year or two, and then added. 

But, after all, it is hardly worth the telling, because, you 
see, we are very comfortable now. Poor Ascott, we suppose, 
must be in Australia. I earn enough to keep Johanna and my- 
self, and Miss Balquidder is a good friend to us. We have re- 
paid her, and owe nobody any thing. . Still we have suffered 
a great deal. Two years ago — oh! it was a dreadful time.^-^ 

She was hardly aware of it, but her candid tell-tale face be- 
trayed more even than her words. It cut Eobert Lyon to the 
heart. 

“ You suffered and I never knew it.^^ 

“ I never meant you to know.^^ 

“ Why not?^^ He walked the room in great excitement. 

I ought to have been told; it was cruel not to tell me. Sup- 
pose you had sunk under it; suppose you had died, or been 
driYen to do what many a woman does for the sake of mere 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 231 

bread and a home — ^what your poor sister did — married. But 
I beg your pardon. 

For Hilary had started up mth her face all aglow, 
i^o/^ she cried; ‘‘ no poverty would have sunk me as low 
as that. I might have starved, but I should never have mar- 
ried. 

Robert Lyon looked at her, evidently uncomprehending, then 
said humbly, though rather formally, 

I beg your pardon once more. I had no right to allude to 
anything of the kind.-’^ ‘ 

Hilary replied not. It seemed as if now, close together, they 
were further apart than when the Indian Seas rolled between 
them. 

Mr. Lyon^s brown cheek turned paler and paler; he pressed 
his lips hard together; they moved -once or twice, but still he 
did not utter a word. At last, with a sort of desperate com*- 
age, and in a tone that Hilary had never heard from him in 
her life before, he said, 

‘‘Yes, I believe I have a right — the right that every man has 
when his whole happiness depends upon it, to ask you one 
question. You know everything concerning me; you always 
have known; I meant that you should — I have taken the utmost 
care that you should. There is not a bit of my life that has 
not been as open to you as if — as if — But I know nothing 
whatever concerning you.’ ^ 

“ What do you wish to know?” she faltered. 

“ Seven years is a long time. Are you free? I mean, are 
you engaged to be married?” 

“No.” 

“Thank God!” 

He dropped his head down between his hands and did not 
speak for a long time. 

And then with dijSiculty — for it was always hard for him to 
speak out — he told her, at least he somehow made her under- 
stand, how he had loved her. No light fancy of sentimental 
youth, captivated by every fresh face it sees, putting upon each 
one. the coloring of its own imagination, and adorning not what 
is, but what itself creates: no sudden, selfish, sensuous passion, 
caring only to attain its object, irrespective of reason, right, or 
conscience; but the strong, deep love of a just man, deliber- 
ately choosing one woman as the best woman out of all the 
world and setting himself resolutely to win her. Battling for 
her sake with all hard fortune; keeping, for her sake, his 
heart pure from all the temptations of the world; never losing 
eight of her; watching over her so far as he could, consistently 


2d2 


MISTRESS ANt) MAID. 


with the sense of honor (or masculine pride — which was it? hut 
Hilary forgave it, anyhow) which made him resolutely compel 
himself to silence; holding her perfectly free, while he held 
himself bound. Bound by a faithfulness perfect as that of the 
knights of old — asking nothing, and yet giving all. 

Such was his love — this brave, plain-spoken, single-hearted 
Scotsman. Would that there were more such men and more 
such love in the world ! 

Few women could have resisted it, certainly not Hilary, es- 
pecially with a little secret of her own lying perdu at the bot- 
tom of her heart; that sleeping angel whence half her 
strength and courage had come; the noble, faithful, generous 
love of a good woman for a good man. But this secret Bobert 
Lyon had evidently never guessed, or deemed himself wholly 
unworthy of such a possession. 

He took her hand at last, and held it firmly. 

‘‘ And now that you know all, do you think in time — 1^11 
not hurry you— but in time, do you think I could make you 
love me?"^ 

She looked up in his face with her honest eyes. Smiling as 
they were, there was pathos Jn them; the sadness left by those 
long years of hidden suffering, now forever ended. 

“ I have loved you all my life,^^ said Hilary. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

. Let us linger a little over this chapter of happy love, so 
sweet, so rare a. thing. Ay, most rare; though hundreds con- 
tinually meet, love, or fancy they do, engage themselves, and 
marry; and hundreds more go through the same proceeding, 
with the slight difference of the love omitted — Hamlet, with 
the part of Hamlet left out. But the real love, steady and 
true; tried in the balance, and not found wanting; tested by 
time, silence, separation; by good and ill-fortune; by the -nat- 
ural and inevitable change which years . make in every char- 
acter — this is the rarest thing to be found on earth, and the 
most precious. 

I do not say that all love is worthless which is not exactly 
this sort of love. There have been people who have suc- 
cumbed instantly and permanently to some mysterious attrac- 
tion, higher than all reasoning; the same which made Hilary 
“ take an Interest "" in Robert Lyfin's face at churcli, and 
made him, he afterward confessed, the very first time he gave 
Ascott a lesson in the parlor at Stowbury, say to himself, “ If 
I did marry, I think I should like such a wife as that brown- 


MISTEESS AKD MAID, 


233 


eyed bit lassie.” And there have been other people, who, 
choosing their partners from accidental circumstances, or from 
mean worldly motives, have found providence kinder to them 
than they deserved, and settled down into happy, affectionate 
husbands and wives. 

But none of these loves can possibly have the sweetness, the 
completeness of such a love as that between Hilary Leaf and. 
-Kobert Lyon. 

There was nothing very romantic about it. From the mo- 
ment when Johanna entered the parlor, found them standing 
hand-in-hand at the fireside, and Hilary came forward and 
kissed her, and after a slight hesitation Eobert did the same, 
the affair proceeded in a most mill-pond fashion: 

“ Unruffled by those cataracts and breaks, 

That humor interposed too often makes.” 

There were no lover’s quarrels; Kobert Lyon had chosen 
that best blessing next to a good woman, a sweet-tempered 
woman; and there was no reason why they should quarrel 
more as lovers than they had done as friends. And, let it be 
said to the eternal honor of both, now, no more than in their 
friendship days, was there any of that hungry engrossment of 
each other’s society, which is only another form of selfishness, 
and by which lovers so often make their own happy courting- 
time a season of never-to-be-forgotten bitterness to everybody 
connected with them. 

Johanna suffered a little; all people do when the new rights 
clash with the old ones; but she rarely betrayed it. She was 
exceedingly good : she saw her child happy, and she loved Eob- 
ert Lyon dearly. He was very mindful of her, very tender; 
and as Hilary still persisted in doing her daily duty in the shop, 
he spent more of his time with the elder sister than he did with 
the younger, and sometimes declared solemnly that if Hilary 
did not treat him well he intended to make an offer to Johanna! 

Oh, the innumerable little jokes of those happy days! Oh, 
the long, quiet walks by the river-side, through the park, 
across Ham Common — anywhere — it did not matter — ^the 
whole world looked lovely, even on the dullest winter day! 
Oh, the endless talks; the renewed mingling of two lives, 
which, though divided, had never been really apart, for neither 
had anything to conceal — neither had ever loved any but the 
other. 

Kobert Lyon was, as I have said, a good deal changed, out- 
wardly and inwardly. He had mixed much in society, taken 
an excellent position therein, and this had given him not only 


334 


MISTEESS AND MAID.' 


a more polisbed manner, but an air of decision and command, 
as of one used to be obeyed. There could not be the slightest 
doubt, as Johanna once laughingly told him, that he would 
always be master in his own house. 

But he was very gentle with his ‘‘ little woman,"" as he 

called her. He would sit for hours, at the ‘‘ ingle-neuk "" 

how he did luxuriate in the English fires!— with Hilary on a 
footstool beside him, her arm resting on his knee, or her hand 
fast clasped in his. And sometimes, when Johanna went out 
of the room, he would stoop and gather her close to his heart. 
But I shall tell no tales; the world has no business with these 
sort of things. 

Hilary was very shy of parading her happiness; she disliked 
^Dionstrations thereof, even before Johanna. And when 
Miss Balquidder, who had, of course, been told of the engage- 
ment, came down one day expressly to see her “ fortunate fel- 
low-countryman,"" this Machiavelian little woman actually per- 
suaded her lover to have an important engagement in London! 
bhe could not bear him to be looked at. "" 

Ah! welb you must leave me, and I will miss you terribly 
my dear" said the old Scotchwoman. But it"s an ill wind 
that blows nobody good, and I have another young lady quite 
re^y to step into your shoes. When shall you be married^"" 

1 don t know— hush! we"ll talk another time,"" said Hil- 
ary, glancing at Johanna. • 

Miss Balquidder took the hint and was silent. 

That important question was indeed begiuning to weis’h 
heavily on Hilary’s mind. She was fully aware of what Mr 
Lyon wished, and, indeed, expected; that when, the business 
of the firm being settled, in six months hence he returned to 
India, he should not return home alone. When he said this, 
she had never dared to answer, hardly even to think. She let 

suKhLgCr fuCre.®"^’ recognizing 

But this could not be always. It came to an end one Janu- 
ary afteriioo^ when he had returned from a second absence in 
talking up Richmond Hill. The sun 
had set frostily and red over the silver curve of the Thames 
^d Venus, large and bright, was shining like a great eye in 
the western sky. Hilary long remembered exactly how every- 
Tb^bf *key stood under when 

marrf lfim°^ ^ definitely the day that she would 

eont3rv“*'^w ??“®e“fi-rtfiere seemed no special reason to the 
contiaiy— that it should be unmediatelyf Or would she like 


MiSTEESS AND MAID. 235 

to remain with Johanna as she was, till just before they sailed? 
He wished to be as good as possible to Johanna; still — 

And something in his manner impressed Hilary more than 
ever before with the conviction of all she was to him; likewise 
all he was to her — more, much more than even a few short 
weeks since. Then, intense as it was, the love had a dream- 
like unreality; now it was close, home-like, familiar. In- 
stinctively she clung to his arm; she had become so used to be- 
ing Robertas darling now. She shivered as she thought of the 
wide seas rolling between them; of the time when she should 
look for him at the daily meal and daily fireside, and find him 
no more. 

“ Robert, I want to talk to you about Johanna. 

“ I guess what it is,^^ said he, smiling; “ you would like her 
to go out to India with us. Certainly, if she chooses. I hope 
you did not suppose I should object?^"’ 

‘‘No; but it is not that. She would not live six months in 
a hot climate: the doctor tells me so.^^ 

“You consulted him?'’^ 

“ Yes, confidentially, without her knowing it. But I 
thought it right. I wanted to make quite sure before — be- 
fore — Oh, Robert— 

The grief of her tone caused him to suspect what was com- 
ing. He started. 

“You donT mean that? Oh, no, you can not! My little 
woman — my own little woman — she could not be so unkind."’^ 

Hilary turned sick at heart. The dim landscape, the bright 
sky, seemed to mingle and dance before her, and Venus to 
stare at her with a piercing, threatening, baleful luster. 

“ Robert, let me sit down on the bench, and sit you beside 
me. It is too dark for people to notice us, and we shall not be 
very cold. 

“No, my darling and he slipped his plaid round her 
shoulders, and his arm with it. 

She looked up pitifully. “ DoriT be vexed with me, Robert, 
dear; I have thought it all over; weighed it on every side; 
nights and nights I have been awake pondering what was right 
to do, and it always comes to the same thing. 

“ What?^^ 

“ It^s the .old story, she answered, with a feeble smile. 
“ ‘ I can na leave my minnie. There is nobody in the world 
to take care of Johanna but me, not even Elizabeth, who is 
engrossed in little Henry. If I left her I am sure it would kill 
her. And she can not come with me. Dear!^^ (the only fond 
jiame she ever called him) ‘‘ for these three years— you say it 


236 


3IISTEESS AKD MAID. 


need only be three years — ^you will have to go- back to India 
alone 

Robert Lyon was a very good man, but he was only a man, 
not^ an angel; and though he made comparatively little show 
of it, he was a man very deeply in love. With that jealous 
tenacity over his treasure, hardly blamable, since the love is 
worth little which does not wish to have its object all to 
itself, he had, I am afraid, contemplated, not without pleas- 
ure, the carrying off of Hilary to his Indian home; and it had 
cost him something to propose that Johanna should go too. 
He was very fond of Johanna; still — 

If I tell what followed, will it forever lower Robert Lyon in 
the estimation of all readers? He said, coldly, ‘‘As you 
please, Hilary;^ ^ rose up, and never spoke another word till 
they reached home. 

^ It was the first dull tea-table they had ever known; the first 
time Hilary had ever looked at that dear face, and seen an ex- 
pression there which made her look away again. He did not 
sulk; he was too gentlemanly for that; he even exerted him- 
self to make the meal pass , pleasantly as usual; but he was 
evidently deeply wounded — nay, more, displeased. The 
strong, stern man's nature within him had rebelled; the- 
sweetness had gone out of his face, and Something had come 
into it which the very best of men have sometimes: alas for 
the woman who can not understand and put up with it! 

I am not going to preach the doctrine of tyrants and slaves; 
but when two walk together they must be agreed, or if by any 
chance they are not agreed, one must yield. It may not always 
be the weaker, or in weakness may lie the chiefest strength; 
but it must be one or other of the two who has to be the first 
to give way; and, save in very exceptional cases, it is, and it 
ought to be, the woman. God's law and nature's, which is 
also God's, ordaius this; instinct teaches it; Christianity en- 
forces it. 

Will it inflict a death-blow upon any admiration she may 
have excited, this brave little Hilary, who fought through the 
world by herself; who did not shrink from traversing London 
streets alone at seemly and unseemly hours; from going into 
sponging-houses and debtors' prisons; from earning her own 
livelihood, even in a shop — if I confess that Robert Lyon, being 
angry with her, justly or unjustly, and she, looking upon him 
as her future liusband, her “ lord and master " if you will, 
whom she would one day promise, and intended literally to 
^ pbey —she thought it her duty-7-not only her pleasui’e, but 


MISTRESS AKD MAm 2S7 

her duf ^ — to be the first to make reconciliation between them? 
ay^ and at every sacrifice except that of princple. 

And I am afraid, in spite of all that “ strong-minded wom- 
en may preach to "the contrary, that all good women will have 
to do this to all men who stand in any close relation toward 
them, whether fathers, husbands, brothers, or lovers, if they 
wish to preserve peace, and love, and holy domestic influence; 
and that so it must be to the end of time. 

Miss Leaf might have discovered that something was amiss, 
but she was too wise to take any notice, and being more than 
usually feeble that day, immediately after tea she went to lie 
down. When Hilary followed her, arranged her pillows, and 
covered her up, Johanna drew her child^s face close to her and 
whispered, 

‘‘ That will do, love. DonT stay with me. I would not 
keep you from Robert on any account. 

Hilary all but broke down; and yet the words made her 
stronger, firmer; set more clearly before her the solemn duty 
which young folks in love are so apt to forget, that there can 
be no blessing on the new tie if for anything short of inevitable 
necessity they let go one link of the old. 

Yet Robert — It was such a new and dreadful feeling to be 
standing outside the door and shrink from going in to him; to 
see him rise up formally, saying, Perhaps he had better 
leave, and have to answer with equal formality, Not unless 
you are obliged and for him then, with a shallow pretense of be- 
ing at ease, to take up a book and offer to read aloud to her while 
she worked — he who used always to set his face strongly against 
all sewing of evenings, because it deprived him temporarily of 
the sweet eyes and the little soft hand — oh, it was hard — hard! 
Nevertheless, she ' sat still and tried to listen; but the words 
went in at one ear and out at the other — she retained nothing. 
By and by her throat began to svyell, and she could not see her 
needle and thi-ead. Yet still he went on reading. It was only 
when, by some blessed chance, turning to reach a paper-cutter, 
he caught sight of her, that he closed the book and looked dis- 
composed — not softened, only discomposed. 

Who shall be first to speak? Who shall catch the passing 
angePs wing? One minute, and it may have passed over. 

I am not apologizing for Hilary the le^st in the world. I do 
not know even if she considered whether it was her place or 
Robertas to make the first advance. Indeed, I fear she did not 
consider it at all, but just acted upon impulse, because it was 
so cruel, so heart-breaking, to be at variance with him. But 
if she had considered it I doubt not she would have done from 


3^8 MISTRESS AKt) MAID. 

duty exactly what she did by instinct— crept up to him as lie 
sat at the fireside, and laid her little hand on his. 

Eobert, what makes you so angry with me still 
Kot angry; I have no right to be.^^ 

“Yes, you would have if I had really done wrong. Have 
“You must judge for yourself.. For me — I thought you 
loved me better than I find you do, and I made a mistake; 
that is all.'’^ 

Ay, he had made a mistake, but it was not that one. It 
was the other mistake that men continually make about wom- 
en; they can not understand that love is not worth having, that 
it is not love at all, but merely a selfish carrying out of selfish 
desires, if it blinds us to any other duty, or blunts in us any 
other sacred tenderness. They can not see how she who is 
false in one relation may be false in another; and that, true as 
human nature^s truth, ay, and often fulfilling itself, is Bra- 
bantio’s ominous warning to Othello — 

“ Look to her, Moor! have a good eye to see 
She has deceived her father, and may thee.” 

Perhaps, as’ soon as he -had said the bitter word, Mr. Lyon 
was sorry; anyhow, the soft answer which followed it thrilled 
through every nerve of the strong-willed man — a man not 
easily made angry, but when he was, very hard to move. ■ 

. “ Kobert, will you listen to me for two minutes 
“ For as long as you like, only you must not expect me to 
agree with you. You can not suppose I shall say it is right 
for you to forsake me. 

“ I forsake you? oh, EobertP’ 

Words are not always the wisest arguments. His “little 
woman crept closer, and laid her head on his breast; he 
clasped her convulsively. 

“ Oh, Hilary, how could you wound me so?^^ 

And, in lieu of the discussion, a long silence brooded over 
the fireside — the silence of exceeding love. 

“ Now, Eobert, may I talk to you?^^ 

“Yes. Preach away, my little conscience ! ^ ^ 

“ It shall not be preachmg, and it is not altogether for con- 
science,'’^ said she, smiling. “You would not like me to tell 
you I did not hve Jolianna?^^ 

“ Certainly not. I .love her very much myself, only I pre- 
fer you, as is natural. Apparently you do not prefer me, 
which may be also natural.^'’ 

“Eobert!^^ 

There are times when a laugh is better than a reproach; and 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


239 


something else, which need not be more particularly explained, 
is safer than either. It is possible Hilary tried the experiment, 
and then resumed her say."’"’ 

‘‘ How, Eobert, put yourself in my place, and try to think 
for me, I have been Johanna^s child for thirty years; she is 
entirely dependent upon me. Her health is feeble; every year 
of her life is at least doubtful. If she lost me I think she would 
never live out the next three years. You would not like that?^^ 

“ In all divided duties like this, somebody must suffer; the 
question is, which can suffer best. She is old and frail, we are 
young; she is alone, we are two; she never had any happiness 
in her life except perhaps me; and we — oh, how happy we 
are! I think, Eobert, it would be better for us to suff'er than 
poor Johanna.'’^ 

“ You little Jesuit,'’’ he said; but the higher nature of the 
man was roused; he was no longer angry. 

“ It is only for a short time, remember — only three years.” 

And how can I do witiiout you for three, years?” 

‘‘ Yes, Eobert, you can.” And she put her arms round his 
neck, and looked at him eye to eye. ‘‘You know I am yom’ 
very own, a piece of yourself, as it were; that when I let you 
go it is like tearing myself from myself; yet I can bear it rather 
than do, or let you do, in the smallest degree, a thing wliich is 
not right.” 

Eobert Lyon was not a man of many words; but he had the 
rare faculty of seeing a case clearly, without reference to him- 
self, and of putting it clearly also, when necessary. 

It seems to me, Hilary, that this is hardly a matter of ab- 
stract right or wrong, or a good deal might be argued on my 
side the subject. It is more a case of personal conscience. 
The two are not always identical, though they look so' at first; 
but they both come- to the same result.” 

“ x\nd that is — ” 

“ If my little woman thinks-4t right to act as she does, I also 
think it right to let her. And let this be the law of our mar- 
ried life, if we ever are married,” and he sighed, “ that when 
we differ each should respect the other’s conscience, and do 
right, in the truest sense, by allowing the other to do the 
same. ” 

“ Oh, Eobert! how good you are.” 

“So these two, an hour after, met Johanna with cheerful 
faces, and she never knew how much both had sacrificed for 
her sake. Once only, when she was for a few minutes absent 


m 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


from the parlor, did Robert Lyon renew the subject, to suggest 
a medium course. 

But Hilary resolutely refused. ot that she doubted him — 
she doubted herself. She knew quite well, by the pang that 
darted through her like a shaft of ice, as she felt his warm arm 
round her, and thought of the time when she would feel it no 
more, that, after she had been Robert Lyon’s happy wife for 
three months, to let him go to India without her would be sim- 
ply and utterly impossible. 

Fast fled the 'months; they dwindled into weeks, and then 
into days. I shall not enlarge upon this time. How, when 
the ends of the world are drawn together, and every family has 
one or more relatives abroad, a grief like Hilary’s has become 
so common that nearly every one can, in degree, understand 
it. How bitter such partings are, how much they take out of 
the brief span of mortal life, and, therefore, how far they are 
justiflable, for anything -short of absolute necessity. Heaven 
knows. 

In this case it was an absolute necessity. Robert Lyon’s 
position in “ qur firm,” with which he identified himself with 
the natural pride of a man who has diligently worked his wslj 
up to fortune, was such that he could not, without sacrificing 
his future prospects, and likewise what he felt to be a point of 
honor, refuse to go back to Bombay until such time as his 
senior partner’s son, the yoimg fellow whom he had ‘‘ coached ” 
in Hindostanee, and nursed through a fever years ago, could 
conveniently take his place abroad. 

Of course,” he said, explaining this to Hilary and her sis- 
ter, accidental oircumstances might occur to cause my re- 
turn home before the three years were out, but the act must be 
none of mine^I must do my duty.” 

Yes, you must,” answered .Hilary, with a gleam lighting 
up her Byes. She loved so in him this one great principle of 
his life— the back-bone of it, as it were— duty before all 
things. 

Johanna asked no questions. ‘Once she had inquired, with a 
tremulous, hardly concealed alarm, whether Robert wished to 
take Hilary back with him, and Hilary had kissed her, smil- 
ingly, saying, "‘Ho, that was impossible.” iiterward the 
subject was never revived. 

And so these two lovers, both stern in what they thought 
their duty, went on silently together to the last day of parting. 

It was almost as quiet a day as that never-to-be-forgotten 
biiiiday at Stowbury. They went a long walk together, in the 
course of which Mr, Lyon forced her to agree to what hitherto 


MISTRESS Aiq-D MAID. 


241 


slie had steadfastly resisted, that she and Johanna should ac- 
cept from him enough, in addition to their own fifty pounds a 
year, to enable them to live’^ comfortably without her working 
any more. 

Are you ashamed of my working?^'’ she asked, with some- 
thing between a tear and a smile. “ Sometimes I used to be 
afraid you would think the less of me because circumstances 
made me an independent woman, earning my own bread. Do 
you?'’^ 

“ My darling! no. I am proud of her. But she must never 
work any more. Johanna says right; it is a man^s place, and 
not a woman’s. I will not allow it.” 

When he spoke in that tone Hilary always submitted. 

He told her another thing while arranging with her all the 
business part of their concerns, and to reconcile her to this 
partial dependence upon him, which, he urged, was only fore- 
stalling his rights — ^that, before he first quitted England seven 
years ago, he had made his will, leaving her, if still unmarried, 
his sole heir and legatee — indeed, in exactly the position that 
she would have been had she been his wife. 

“ This will exists still, so that in any case you are safe. Ho 
further poverty can ever befall my Hilary.” 

His — his own — Robert Lyon’s own. Her sense of this was 
so strong that it took away the sharpness of the parting; made 
her feel, up to the very last minute, when she dung to him — ■ 
was pressed close to him — heart to heart and lip to lip — for a 
space that seemed half a life-time of mixed anguish and joy — 
that he was not really going; that, somehow or other, next day 
or next week he would be back again, as in his frequent reap- 
pearances, exactly as before. 

When he was really gone — when, as she sat with her tearless 
eyes fixed on the closed door, Johanna softly touched her, say- 
ing, My child!” then Hilary learned it all. 

The next twenty-four hours will hardly bear being written 
about. Most people know what it is to miss the face out of 
the house— the life out of the heart. To come and go, to eat 
and drink, to lie down and rise, and find all things the same, 
and gradually to recognize that it must be the same, indefinite- 
ly, perhaps always. To be met continually by small trifles — a 
dropped glove, a book, a scrap of handwriting that yesterday 
would have been thrown into the fire, but to-day is picked up 
and kept as a relic; and at times, bursting through the quiet^ 
ness whi(;h must be gained, or at least assumed, the cruel crav- 
ing for one word more — one kiss more — for only one five min- 
utes of the eternally ended yesterday! 


2i2 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


All this hundreds have gone through; so did Hilary. She 
said afterward it was good for her that she did; it would make 
her feel for others in a way she had never felt before. Also, 
because it taught her that such a heart-break can be borne and 
lived through when help is sought where only real help can be 
found; and where, when reason fails, -and those who, striving 
to do right irrespective of the consequences, cry out against 
their torments, and wonder why they should he made so to 
suffer, child-like faith comes to their rescue. For, let us have 
ajl the philosophy at .our fingers^ ends, what are we but chil- 
dren? We know not what a day may bring forth. All wis- 
dom resolves itself into the simple hymn which we learned when 
we were young: 

“ Deep in unfathomable mines 
Of never-failing skill 

He treasures up His vast designs. 

And works His sovereign will. 

Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

And scan His work in vain: 

God is His own interpreter, 

And He will make it plain.” 

The night after Eohert Lyon left, Hilary and Johanna were 
sitting together in their parlor. Hilary had been writing a 
long letter to Miss Balquidder, explaining that she would now 
give up, in favor of the other young lady, or any other of the 
many to whom it would be a blessing, her position m the shop; 
but that she hoped still to help her — Miss Balquidder — in any 
way she could point out that would be useful to others. She 
wished, in her humble way, as a sort of thank-offering from 
one who had passed through the waves and been landed safe 
ashore, to help those who were still struggling, as she herself 
had struggled once. She desired, as far as in her lay, to be 
Miss Balquidder^s ‘‘ right hand till Mr. Lyon came home. 

This letter she read aloud to Johanna, whose failing eyesight 
refused all candle-light occupation, and when came and sat be- 
side her in silence. She felt terribly worn and weary, but she 
was very quiet now. 

“We must go to bed early, was all she said. 

“ Yes, my child. 

And Johanna smoothed her hair in the old, fond way, making 
no attempt to console her, but only to love her — alwa3'^s the 
safest consolation. And Hilary was thankful that never, even 
in her sharpest agonies of grief, had she betrayed that secret 
which would have made her sister^s life miserable, have blotted 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 243 

out the thirty years of motherly love, and caused the other love 
to rise up like a cloud, between her and it, never to be lifted 
until J ohanna sunk into the possibly not far-off grave. 

“ No, no,^' she thought to herself, as she looked on that frail 
old face, which even the -secondary grief of this last week 
seemed to have made frailer and older. ‘‘ No, it is better as it 
: is; I believe I did right. The end will show.^^ 

The end was jiearer than she thought. So, sometimes— nOt 
often, lest self-sacrifice should become a less holy thing than it 
. is — Providence accepts the will for the act, and makes the 
latter needless. 

There was a sudden knock at the hall door. 

It is the young people coming in to supper. 

“ It^s not,^-’ said Hilary, starting up: “ iPs not their knock. 
It is— 

She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in 
Robert Lyon^s arms. 

“ What does it all mean?^'’ cried the bewildered Johanna, of 
whom, I must confess, for once nobody took the least notice. 

It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we call 
them, which in a moment alter the whole, current of things, 
the senior partner had suddenly died, and his son, not being 
qualified to take his place in the Liverpool house,, had to go 
out to India instead of Robert Lyon, who would now remain 
permanently, as the third senior partner, in England. 

This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone 
thence direct to Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was possi- 
ble, and returned, traveling without an hour^s intermission, to 
tell his own tidings, as was best — or as he thought it was. 

Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to come 
suddenly back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead could 
come, they would find all things changed : the place filled up 
in home and hearth — no face of welcome — no heart leaping to 
heart in the ecstasy of reunion. 

Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings — :and being a 
man, and in love, perhaps he had — they were ended now. 

“ Is she glad to see me?^^ was all he could find to say when, 
Johanna having considerately vanished, he might have talked 
as much as he pleased. 

Hilary^s only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpressible 
content. . 

He lifted up between his hands the sweet face, neither so 
■young nor so prefcty as it had been, but oh! so sweet, with the 
sweetness that long outlives beauty— a face that a man might 
look on all to hfe-time and never tire of-— so infinitely loying. 


MISTKESS AKD MAID. 


m 

scTinfinitely true! And he knew it was his wife^s face, to shine 
upon him day by day, and year by year, till it faded into old 
age — beautiful and beloved even then. All the strong nature 
of the man gave way; he wept almost like a child in his little 
woman '’s arms. 

Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside — ^these two, 
who are to sit by one fireside as long as they live. Of their 
further fortune we know nothing — nor do they themselves — 
except the one fact, in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to 
hold, that it will be shared together. Two at the hearth, two 
abroad; two to labor, two to rejoice; or, if so it must be, two 
to weep, and two to comfort one another; the man to be the 
head of the woman, and the woman the heart of the man. 
This is the ordination of God; this is the perfect life; none the 
less perfect that so many fall short of it. 

So let us bid them good-bye : Kobert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, 

Good-bye; God be with yeF’ for we shall see them no more. 


CHAPTEE XXVII. 

Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing oukto 
little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into 
flower in, the square below, and speculating with him whether 
the tribes of sparrows which they had fed all winter from the 
mignonette boxes bn the window-sill would be Wlding nests 
in the tall trees of Eussell Square; for she wished, with her 
great aversion to London, to make her nursling as far as possi- 
ble a ‘‘ country child. 

Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He 
would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, 
‘‘Mammy Lizzie,'^ also “ Pa-pa,"" as had been carefully taught 
him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa had been at 
first excessively surprised, then gratified, and had at last taken 
kindly to the appellation as a matter of course. 

It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott"s life. At first 
twice a week, and then every day, he sent up for “ Master 
Ascott "" to keep him company at dessert; he then changed his 
dinner-hour from half past six to five, because Elizabeth, with 
her stern sacrifice of everything to the child"s good, had sug- 
gested to him, humbly but firmly, that late hours kept little 
Henry too long out of his bed,. He gave up his bottle of port 
and his after-dinner sleep, andXtook to making water-lilies and 
caterpillars out of oranges, and boats out of walnut-shells, for 
his boy"s special edification. Sometimes when, at half past 
m, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining- 


MISTBESS AOT MAID. 


245 


toom door, she heard father and son laughing together in a 
most jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places 
and the wine-glasses untouched. 

And even after the child disappeared the butler declared 
that master usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for 
his tea, or perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bed-time. 

I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; 
people do not change, especially at his age; externally he was 
still the same pompous, overbearing, coarse man, with whom, 
no doubt, his son would have a tolerably sore bargain in years 
to come. But still the child had touched a soft corner in his 
heart, the one soft corner which in his youth had yielded to 
the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf, and the old fellow was a better 
old fellow than he had once been. Probably, with care, he 
might be for the rest of his life at least manageable. 

Elizabeth hoped so, for his boy^s sake; and, little as she liked 
him, she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. 
She always took care to treat him with extremes respect, and to 
bring up little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, 
Mr. Ascott began gradually to comport himself in a manner 
deserving of respect. He ceased his oaths and his coarse lan- 
guage; seldom flew into a passion; and last, not least, the but- 
ler avouched that master hardly ever went to bed muzzy 
now. Toward all his domestics, and especially to his son^s 
nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a 
tyrant, so that the establishment at Bussell Square went on in 
a way more peaceful than had ever been known before. 

There was no talk of his giving it' a new mistress; he seemed 
to have had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never 
spoke; whether he loved her or not, whether he had regretted 
her or not, the love and regret were now alike ended. 

Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense 
of duty’, occasionally talked to little Henry about ‘‘ mamma 
up there — ^pointing to the blank bit of blue sky over the 
trees of Bussell Square, and hoped in time to make him under- 
stand something about her, and how she had loved him, her 
baby."’^ This love — the only beautiful emotion her life had 
known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her 
death, the one remembrance she left to her child. 

Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his 
father. He took after some forgotten type, some past genera- 
tion of either family, which reappeared in this as something 
new. To Elizabeth he was a perfect revelation of beauty and 
infantile fascination. He filled up every corner of her heart. 
She grew fat and flourishing, even cheerful; so cheerful that 


246 


MISTKESS AKD MAID. 


she bore with equanimity the parting with her dear Miss Hilary, 
who went away in glory and happiness as Mrs. Eobert Lyon, 
to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus both Eliza- 
beth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more than 
probable that for the future, their lives and hers being so 
widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses 
any more. But they had done their work in her and for her, 
and it had borne fruit a hundred-fold, and would still. 

I know you will take care of this child — he is the hope of 
the family, said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss 
to little Henry. “ I could not bear to leave him if I were not 
leaving him with you. 

And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, 
knowing she was trusted, and inwardly vowing to be worthy 
of that trust. 

Another dream was likewise ended — so completely that she 
sometimes wondered if it was ever real; whether she had ever 
been a happy girl, looking forward as girls do to wifehood and 
motherhood, or whether she had not been always the staid 
middle-aged person she was now, whom nobody ever suspected 
of any such things. 

She had been once back to her old home, to settle her moth- 
er comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to ^prentice her little 
brother, to see one sister married, and the other sent off to 
Liverpool -to be servant to. Mrs. Lyon. While at Stowbury, 
she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe^s passing through the 
town as a Chartist lecturer, or something of the sort, with his 
pretty, showy London wife, who, when he brought her there, 
had looked down rather contemptuously upon the street where 
Tom was born. 

This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had 
passed from her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do 
pass, like a dream and the shadows of a dream. It may be 
life itself will seem at the end to be nothing more. 

But Elizabeth Hand^s love-story was not so to end. 

One morning, the same morning when she had been point- 
ing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the 
square with a branch of them in her hand, the postman gave 
her a letter, the handwriting of which made her start as if it 
had been a visitation from the dead. 

Mammy Lizzie, Mammy Lizzie cried little Henry, pluck- 
ing at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. 
She stood on the doorstep, trembling violently; at length she 
put the letter into her pocket, lifted the child, and got up- 
stairs somehow. When she had settled her charge to his mid- 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


247 

day sleep, then, and not till then, did she take out and read 
the few lines, which, though written on shabby paper, and 
with more than one blot, were^o like — ^yet so terribly unlike — 
Tomb’s calligraphy of old: 

Dear Elizabeth, — I have no right to ask any kindness 
of you; but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish 
you would come and see me. I have been long of asking you, 
lest you might fancy I wanted to get something out of you; 
for I^m as poor as a rat; and once lately, I saw you, looking 
so well and well-to-do. But it was the same kind old face, . 
and I should like to get one kind look from it before I go 
where I sha^n^t want any kindness from anybody. However, 
do just as you choose. 

‘‘ Yours affectionately, 

“T. Cliffe. 

“ Underneath is my address. 

It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now 
swept away by Victoria Street and other improvements. Eliza- 
beth happened to have read about it in one of the many 
charitable pamphlets, reports, etc. , which were sent continu- 
ally to ilie wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he sent down-stairs 
to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have sunk to 
before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry out 
of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first 
love. 

Is any woman ever so deaf to that? The love may have died 
a natural death: many first loves do: a riper, completer, hap- 
pier love may have come in its place; but there must be some- 
thing unnatural about the woman, and man likewise, who can 
ever quite forget it — the dew of their youth — the beauty of 
their dawn. . 

“ Poor Tom! poor Tom!^^ sighed Elizabeth; ‘‘ my own poor 
Tom!^^ 

She forgot Esther, either from Tom^s not mentioning her, 
or in the strong return to old times which his letter produced; 
forgot her for the time being as completely as if she had never 
existed. Even when the recollection came it made little differ- 
ence. The sharp jealousy, the dislike and contempt, had all 
calmed down; she thought she could now see Tonies wife as 
any other woman— especially if, as the letter indicated, they 
were so very poor and miserable. 

Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps, though 
Tom did not, Esther did ‘^want to get something out of her 


^48 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


■ — Elizabeth Hand, who was known to have large wages, and to 
be altogether a thriving person? Well, it mattered little. The 
one fact remained: Tom was in distress; Tom needed her; she 
must go. 

Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in 
bed. The intervening hours, especially the last one, when the 
child was down-stairs with his father, calmed her; subdued 
the tumult of old remembrances that came surging up and 
beating at the long-shut door of her heart. When her boy re- 
turned, leaping and laughing, and playing all sorts of tricks as 
she put him to bed, she could smile too. And when, kneeling 
beside her in his pretty white night-gown, he stammered 
through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to teach 
him, though of course he was too young to understand it, the 
words ‘^Thy will be done;^'’ ‘‘Forgive us our trespasses, as 
we forgive those who trespass against us;^^ and, lastly, “ Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,^^ struck home 
to his nurse^s inmost soul. 

“ Mammy— Mammy Lizzie^s Tying 

Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to 
kiss her little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes; then 
she took off her good silk gown, and dressed herself soberly and 
decently, but so that people should not suspect, in that low 
and dangerous neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in 
an under-pocket, ready to use as occasion required. Thus 
equipped, she started without a minuteT delay for Tom’s' 
lodging. 

It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, bare 
almost as when it was built. No chimney or grate, no furni- 
ture except a box which served as both table and chair; and a 
heap of straw, with a blanket thrown over it. The only com- 
fort about it was that it was clean: Tom’s innate sense of re- 
finement had abided with him to the last. 

Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for Tom 
was out — gone, the landlady said, to the druggist’s shop round 
the corner. 

“ He’s very bad, ma’am,” added the woman, civilly, proba- 
bly led thereto by Elizabeth’s respectable appearance, and the 
cab in which she had come, lest she should lose a minute’s 
time. “ Can’t last long; and Lord knows who’s to bury him. ” 

With that sentence knelling in her ears Elizabeth waited till 
she heard the short cough and the hard breathing of some one 
toiling heavily up the stair. 

Tom-Tom himself. But oh! so altered; with every bit of 
youth gone out of him; with death written on every line of his 


MISTRESS ASTD MAID. 


240 


haggard face, the death he had once prognosticated with a 
sentimental pleasure, but which now had come upon him in all 
its ghastly reality. 

He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease ^as 
latent in his family, Elizabeth knew: she had known it when 
she had belonged to him, and fondly thought that, as his wife, 
her incessant care might save him from it; but nothing could 
save him now. 

Who^s that?^^ said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice. 

‘‘ Me, Tom. But donT speak. Sit down till your cough 
over. ^ 

Tom grasped her hand as she stood by him, but he made no 
further demonstration, nor .used any expression of gratitude. 
He seemed far too ill. Sick people are always absorbed in the 
sad present; they seldom trouble themselves much' about the 
past. Only there was something in the way Tom clung to her 
hand, helplessly, imploringly, that moved the inmost heart of 
Elizabeth. 

T’m very bad, you see. This cough — oh, it shakes me 
dreadfully, especially of m'ghts. . 

‘‘ Have you any doctor?'’^ , 

“ The druggist close by, or rather the druggist^s shopman. 
He^s a very kind young fellow, from our county, I fancy, for 
he asked me once if I wasnT a Stowbury man; and ever since 
he has doctored me for nothing, and given me a shilling, too, 
now and then, when IVe been a^’most clemmed to death in the 
winter. 

Oh, Tom, why didnH you write to me before? Have you 
actually wanted food 

“Yes, many a time. I\e been out of work this twelve- 
month.^^ 

“ But Esther?^ ^ 

“ Who?^'’ screamed Tom. 

“Your wife. * 

“ My wife? I’ve got none! She spent everything till I fell 
ill, and then she met a fellow with lots o’ money. Curse 
her!” 

The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and sent 
him into another violent fit of coughing, out of which he re- 
vived by degrees, but in a state of such complete exhaustion 
that Elizabeth hazarded no more questions. He must evident- 
ly be dealt with exactly like a child. 

She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed she 
had done ever since she came into the room. 

“ Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. I’ll 


250 MISTRESS AOT MAII). 

be back as soon as I can— back with something to do you good. 
You won^t object?’^ 

“No, no; you can do anything you like with me. You 
always could. 

Elizabeth groped her way down-stairs strangely calm and 
self-possessed.. There was need. Tom, dying, had come to her 
as his sole support and consolation — thrown himself helplessly 
upon her, never doubting either her will or her power to help 
liim. Neither must fail. The inexplicable woman’s strength, 
sometimes found in the very gentlest, quietest, and apparently 
the weakest character, nerved her now. 

She went up and down street after street, looking fcfr lodg- 
ings, till the evening darkened, and the abbey towers rose 
grimly against the summer sky. Then she crossed over West- 
minster Bridge, and on a little street on the Surrey side she 
found what she wanted — a decent room, half sitting, half bed- 
room, with what looked like a decent landlady. There was no 
time to make many inquiries; anything was better than to leave 
Tom another night where he was. 

She paid a week’s rent in advance; bought firing and pro- 
visions; everything she could think of to make him comforta- 
ble, and then she went to fetch him in a cab. 

The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed 
to know what she was going with him. She discovered the 
cause of this half-insensibility when, in making a bundle of his 
few clothes, she found a packet labeled “ opium.” 

“ Don’t take it from me,” he said, pitifully. “ It’s the only 
comfort I have. ” 

But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with the 
fire blazing and the tea laid out, he woke up like a person out 
of a bad dream. 

“ Oh, Ehzabeth, I’m so comfortable!” 

Elizabeth could have wept. 

Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or 
whether it was one of the- sudden flashes of life that often 
occur in consumptive patients, but he seemed really better, 
and began to talk, telling Elizabeth about his long illness, and 
saying over and over again how very kind the druggist’s young 
man had been to him. 

“ I’m sure he’s a gentleman, though he has come down in 
the world; for, as he says, ‘ Misery makes a man acquainted 
with strange bed-fellows, and taken the nonsense out of him. ’ 
I think so too; and if ever I get better, I don’t mean to go about 
the country speaking against born gentlefolks any more. 
They’re much of a muchness as ourselves — bad and good; a 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 55 1 

Kttle of all sorts; the same flesh and blood as we are. Aren’t 
they, Elizabeth?’’ 

‘‘ I suppose so..” 

‘‘ And there’s another thing I mean to do — mean to try 
and be good like you. Many a night, when I’ve lain on that 
straw, and thought I was dying, I’ve remembered you and all 
the things you used to say to me. You are a good woman; 
there never was a better.” 

Elizabeth smiled, a faint, rather sad smile; for, as she was 
washing up the tea things, she had noticed Tom’s voice grow 
feebler, and his features sharper and more wan. 

I’m very tired,” he said. I’m afraid to go to bed, I 
get such wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my 
clothes, I could go to sleep.” . 

Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pillow, 
and covered him up as if he had been a cliild. 

‘‘ You’re very good to me,” he said, and looked up at her — 
Tom’s bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed away in 
a moment, and he closed his eyes, saying he was so terribly 
tired. 

‘‘ Then I’ll bid you good-bye, for I ought to have been at 
home by now. You’ll take care of yourself, Tom, and I’ll 
come and see you again, the very first hour I can be spared. 
And if you want ine you’ll send to me at once? You know 
where?” 

I will,” said Tom. ‘‘ It’s the same house, isn’t it, in Rus- 
sell Square?” 

‘‘ Y^es. ” And they were both silent. 

After a minute Tom asked, in a troubled voice, 

‘‘ Have you forgiven me?” 

‘^Yes, Tom, quite.” 

Won’t you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?” 

She turned away. She did not mean to be hard, but some- 
how she could not kiss Esther’s husband. 

“ Ah! well, it’s all the same. Good-bye!” 

“ Good-bye, Tom. ” 

But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him lying 
with his eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, Elizabeth’s 
heart melted. He was her Tom, her own Tom, of whom she 
had been so fond, so proud; whose future she had joyfully an- 
ticipated long before she thought of herself as mixed up with 
it.; and he was dying — dying at four-and-twenty; passing away 
to the other world, where, perhaps, she might meet him yet, 
with no cruel Esther between. 

/‘Tom/’ she said, and knelt beside him, / Tom, I didn’t 


252 


MISTRESS AKD MAID* 


mean to vex you. try to be as good as a sister to you. PlI 
never forsake you as long as you 
“ I know you never will.^^ ‘ 

“ Good-bye^ then, for to-night.'’^ 

And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and tender- 
ly. She was so glad of it afterward. ' 

It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; but 
nobody ever questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, who 
was a privileged person. She crept in beside her little Henry, 
and as the child turned in his sleep and put his arms about her 
neck, she clasped him tight, and thought there was still some- 
thing to live for in this weary world. 

All night she thought over what best could be done for Tom. 
Though she never deceived herself for a moment as to his state, 
still she thought, with care and proper nm'sing, he might live 
a few months, especially if she could get him into the Con- 
sumptioh Hospital, newly started in Chelsea, of which she was 
aware Mr. Ascott— who dearly liked to see his name in a 
charity-list — ^was one of the governors. 

There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to 
her master at once. 


The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, 
who was now always expected to appear, and say, Dood-morn- 
ing, papa,^^ before Mr. Ascott went into the city. 

As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the 
father beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce 
thought smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be stand- 
ing there fat and flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made 
her bold to ask the only favor she. ever had asked of the mas-, 
ter whom she did not care for, and to whom she had done her 
duty simply as duty, without, until lately, one fragment of re- 
spect. 


Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before 
you go out?" 

“ Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Anything about Master Henryk 
Or perhaps yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I 
shall be glad, in any reasonable way, to show my satisfaction 
at the manner in which you bring up my son." 

‘‘ Thank you, sir," said Elizabeth, courtesying. “ But it is 
not that. 


And in the briefest language she could find she explained 
wiiat it was. ^ 


Mr. Ascott knitted liis brows and looked important. He 
never scattered li|s benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly 


MISTRESS Al^D MAID. 


253 


liked to create difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth 
them down. 

“To get a patient admitted at the Consumption Hospital is, 
you- should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at 
Queen ^s Elm is complete. But I flatter myself I have influ- 
ence. I have subscribed a deal of money. Possibly the person 
may be got in in time. Who did you say he was?^ • 

“ Thomas Oliffe. He married one of the servants here, 
Esther — 

“ Oh, donT trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't 
recollect it. The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife 
apply to the housekeeper?^' 

The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, 
and Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public 
Tom's misery and Esther's shame. 

“ And you say he is a Stoy^bury man? That is certainly a 
claim. I always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Par- 
liament might be, to do my best for any one belonging to my 
native town. So be satisfied, Mrs. Hand; consider the thing 
settled." 

And he was going away; but time being of such great mo- 
ment, Elizabeth ventured to detain him till he had written the 
letter of recommendation, and found out what days the appli- 
cation for admittance could be received. He did it very 
patiently, and even took out his purse and laid a sovereign on 
the top of the letter. ' 

“ I suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his bene- 
fit." 

“ There is no need, thank you, sir," said Elizabeth, putting 
it gently aside. She could not bear that Tom should accept 
anybody's money but her own. 

At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter ex- 
plaining what she- had done, and appointing the next day but 
one, the earliest possible, for taking him out to Chelsea her- 
self. If he objected to the plan he was to write and say so; 
but she urged him as strongly as she could not to let slip this 
opportunity of obtaining good nursing and first-rate medical 
care. 

Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his 
one room — comfortable though it was, and though she begged 
the landlady to see that he wanted nothing — came across her 
with a sudden pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pil- 
low, with its last afiectionate smile, the sound of his cough as 
she ftood listening outside on the stair-head, haunted her all 
through that sunshiny June day; and mingled with it came 


254 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ghostly visions of that other day in June— her happy Whitsun 
holiday — her first and her last. 

No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, she 
left Master Harry in the charge of the house-maid,, who was 
very fond of him— as indeed he bade fair to be spoiled by the 
whole establishment at Russell Square — and went down to 
Westminster. 

There was a long day before her, so she took a minute^’s 
breathing space on Westminster Bridge, and watched the great 
current of Loudon life ebbing and flowing- — life on the river 
and life on the shore; everybody so busy, and active, and 
bright. 

Poor Tom! poor Tom!^^ she sighed, and wondered whether 
liis ruined life would ever come to any happy ending except 
death. 

She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had 
taken his lodgings. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in 
London streets, a public-house, about which more than the 
usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. There 
were also one or two policemen, who were ordering the little 
crowd to give way to a group of twelve men, coming out. 

“ What is that?^’ asked Elizabeth. 

“ Coroner’s inquest; jury proceeding to view the body.” ' 

Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with anything of 
the sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little pro-, 
cession pass, and then followed it up the street. 

It stopped — oh, no! not at that door! But it was; there was 
no mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the 
upper room — Tom’s room. 

‘‘Who is dead?” she asked, in a whisper that made the 
policeman stare. 

“Oh! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in his 
bed; supposed to be a case of consumption; verdict will proba- 
bly be, ‘ Died by the visitation of God.’ ” 

Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law’s solemn recogni- 
tion of our national religious feeling, was true here. God had 
“ visited ” poor Tom; he suffered no more. 

Elizabeth leaned against the door- way, and saw the twelve 
jurymen go upstairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, 
one after the other, less noiselessly, and some of them looking 
grave. Nobody took any notice of her until the lodging-house 
mistress appeared. 

“ Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as 
saw him last alive. She’ll give her evidence. She’ll tell ^ou 
I’m not a bit to blame. ” 


MISTRESS AHD MAID, 


255 

And, pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a 
torrent of explanation — how she had done her very best for the 
poor fellow; how she had listened at his door several times 
during the first day, and heard him cough, that is, she thought 
she had, but toward, night all was so very quiet; and there hav- 
ing come a letter by post, she thought she would take it up to 
him. 

“ And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, 
I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone. 

“ Let me pass; I^m a doctor,'’^ said somebody behind; a 
young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He 
push^ aside the landlady and Elizabeth till he saw the latter's 
face. 

Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will 
you?'' he called out; and his authoritative manner impressed 
the jurymen, who gathered round him, ready and eager to 
hear anything he could say. 

He gave his name as Jolni Smith, druggist's assistant; said 
that the young man who lodged upstairs, whose death he had 
only just heard of, had been Ms patient for some months, and 
was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the 
death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained 
in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, 
and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and 
proceeded to the public-house, where, after a brief consulta- 
tion, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had 
foretold, Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes and 
brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several 
homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country. 

Meantime Elizabeth crept upstairs. Nobody hindered or 
followed her; nobody cared anything for the sohtary dead. 

There he lay — poor Tom! — almost as she had left him; the 
counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on 
the chair had burned down to a bit of a wick, which lay in the 
socket. Nobody had touched him, or anything about him, as, 
in all cases of “ Found dead," English law exacts. 

Whether he had died soon after she had quitted him that 
night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours of 
darkness, or of daylight following, alive and conscious perhaps, 
yet too weak to call any one, even had there been any one he 
cared to call — when or how the spirit had passed away unto 
Him wMo gave it were mysteries that could never be known. 

But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile 
on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at Mm, could 
not, dared not weep. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


35 n 

My poor Tom, my own dear Tom/^ was all she thought, 
and knew that he was all her own now; that she had loved him 
through everything, and loved him to the end. 


CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that 
house, in that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody 
asked in what relation she stood to the deceased, or what right 
she had to take upon herself the arrangements for his funeral. 
Everybody was only too glad to let her assume a responsibility 
which .would othewise have fallen on the parish. 

The only person who appeared to remember either her or the 
dead man was the druggist^s assistant, who sent in the neces- 
sary medical certificate as to the cause of death. Elizabeth 
took it to the Kegistrar, and thence proceeded to an undertaker 
hard by, with whom she arranged all about the funeral, and 
that it should take place in the new cemetery at Kensal Green. 
She thought she would like that better than a close noisy Lon- 
don church- yard. 

Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin 
and covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till 
then, she sat herself down beside him and wept. 

Nobody contested with her the possession of the few things 
that had belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the 
clothes he had on when he died; so she made them up into a 
parcel and took them away with her. In his waistcoat pocket 
she found one' book, a little Testament, which she had given 
him herself. It looked as if it had been a good deal read. If 
all his studies, all his worship of pure intellect, as the one 
supreme good, had ended in that, it was a blessed ending. 

When she reached home, Elizabeth went at once to her mas- 
ter, returned him his letter of recommendation, and explained 
to him that his kindness was not needed now. 

Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from her a 
few particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea 
for all mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined; she said she 
would only ask him for an advance of her next half -yearns 
wages. She preferred burying her old friend herself. 

She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright sum- 
mer’s day, with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white grave- 
stones in Kensal Green. The clergyman appeared, read the 
service, and went away again. A few minutes ended it all. 
When the imdertaker and his men had also departed, she sat 
down on, a bench near to watch the sexton filling up the grave 


MTSTRESf? AND MAID. 


%o7 

— Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely 
observant person watching her face could have penetrated into 
Ihe truth of what 3^our impulsive characters, always in the ex- 
tremes of mirth and misery, never understand about quiet peo- 
ple, that still waters run deep." 

While she sat there some one came past her and turned 
round. It was the shabby-looking chemist's assistant, who had 
appeared at the inquest and given the satisfactory evidence- 
which had prevented the necessity of her giving hers. 

Elizabeth arose and acknowledged him with a resjDectful 
courtesy; for under his threadbare clothes was the bearing of a 
gentleman, and he had been so kind to Tom. 

“ I am too late," he said; the funeral is over. I meant 
to have attended it, and seen the last of the poor fellow. ' ' 

Thank you, sir," replied Elizabeth, gratefully. 

The young man stood before her, looking at her earnestly 
for a minute or two, and then exclaimed,- with a complete 
change of voice and manner, Elizabeth! don't you know me? 
What has become of my aunt Johanna?" 

It was Ascott Leaf. 

But no wonder Elizabeth had not recognized him. His close- 
cropped hair, his large beard hiding half his face, and a pair of 
spectacles which he had assumed, were a sufficient disguise. 
Besides, the great change from his former dandy" appear- 
ance to the extreme of shabbiness — his clothes being evidently 
worn as long as they possibly could hold together, and his gen- 
ei’ally depressed air giving the effect of one who had gone do-wn 
in the world — made him, even Without the misleading “ John 
Smith " most milikelv to be identified with the Ascott Leaf 
of old. 

I never should have known you, sir!" said Elizabeth, truth- 
fully, when her astonishment had a little subsided; but I am 
very glad to see you. Oh, how thankful you aunts will be!" 

Do you think so? I thought it was quite the contraiw. 
But it does not matter; they will never hear of me, imless you 
tell them — and I believe I may trust you. You would not be- 
tray-me, if only for the sake of that poor fellow yonder?" 

‘‘No,sir." 

“ How tell me something about my aunts, especially my 
aunt Johanna." 

And sitting down in the simshine, with his arm upon the 
back of the bench, and his hand hiding his eyes, the poor 
prodigal listened in silence to everything Elizabeth told him; 
of his aunt Selina's marriage and death, and of Mr, Lyon's 
return, and of the happy home at Liverpool. 

9 


358 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


‘‘They are all quite happy, then?^^ said he, at length; 
“ they seem to have begun to prosper ever since they got rid 
of me. Well, I^m glad of it. I only wanted to hear of them 
from you. I shall never trouble them any more. You^ll keep 
my secret, I know. And now I must go, for I have not a 
minute more to spare. Good-bye, Elizabeth. 

With a humility and friendliness, strange enough in Ascott 
Leaf, he held out his hand — empty, for he had nothing to give 
now — to his atmt^s old servant. But Elizabeth detained him. 

“ Don’t go, sir; please don’t — not just yet>” and then she 
added, with an earnest respectfulness that touched the heart of 
the poor, shabby man, “ I hope you’ll pardon the liberty I 
take; I’m only a servant, but I knew you when you were a 
boy, Mr. Leaf; and if you would trust , me— if you would let 
me be of use# to you in any way — ^if only because you were so 
good to there. ” 

“ Poor Tom Cliffe; he was not a bad fellow; he liked me 
rather, I think; and I was able to doctor him, and help him a 
little. Heigh-ho; it’s a comfort to think I ever did any good 
to anybody.” 

Ascott sighed, drew his rusty coat-sleeve across his eyes, and 
sat contemplating his boots, which were anything but dandy 
boots now. 

“ Elizabeth, what relation was Tom to you? If I had known 
you weje acquainted with him I should have been afraid to go 
near him; but I felt sure, though he came from Stowbury, he 
did not guess who I was; he only knew me as Mr. Smith; and' 
he never once mentioned you. Was he your cousin, or what?’’’ 

Elizabeth considered a moment and then told the simple 
fact; it could not matter now. 

“ I was once going to be married to him, but he saw sonie- 
body he liked better, and married her. ” 

“ Poor girl! poor Elizabeth!” 

Perhaps nothing could have shown the great change in As- 
cott more than the tone in which he uttered these words; a tone 
of entire respect and kindly pity, from which he never once 
departed during that conversation, and many, many others, so 
long as their confidential relations lasted. 

“ Now, sir, would you be so kind as to tell me something 
about yourself? I’ll not repeat anything to your aunts, if you 
d'on’t wish it. ” 

Ascott yielded. He had been so long, so utterly forlorn. 
He sat down beside Elizabeth, and then, with eyes often avert- 
^ ed, and with many breaks between, which she had to fill up as 
best she could, he told her all his story, even to the sad secret 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


259 

of all, which had caused him t5 run away from home, and hide 
himself in the last place where he would have thought he was, 
the safe wilderness of London. There, carefully disguised, he 
had lived decently while his money lasted, and then, driven 
step by step to the brink of destitution, he had olfered himself 
for employment in the lowest grade of his own profession, and 
been tajcen as assistant by the not overscrupulous chemist and 
druggist in that not too respectable neighborhood of Westmin- 
ster, with a salary of twenty pounds a year. 

‘‘ And I actually live upon it added he, with a bitter smile. 
‘‘ I canT run into debt; for who would trust me? And I dress 
in rags almost, as you see. And I get my meals how and 
where I can; aiid I sleep under the shop counter. A pretty 
life for Mr. Ascott Leaf, isnT it, now? What would my aunts 
say if they knew it?^^ 

They would say it was an honest , life, and that they were 
not a bit ashamed of you."*^ 

Ascott drew himself up a little, and his chest heaved visibly 
under the close-buttoned, threadbare coat. 

‘‘.Well, at least it is a life that makes nobody else miser- 
able.^^ 

Ay, that wonderful teacher. Adversity, 

“ Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in its head,” 

had left behind this jewel in the young man^s heart. A dis- 
guised, beggared outcast, he had found out the value of an 
honest name; forsaken, unfriended, he. had learned the pre- 
ciousness of home and love; made a servant of, tyrannized over, 
and. held in low esteem, he had been taught by hard experience 
the* secret of true humility and charity — the esteeming of others, 
better than himself. 

^N’ot with all natryres does misfortune so work, but it did with 
his. He had sinned; he had paid the cost of his sin in bitter 
suffering; but the result was cheaply bought, and he already 
began to feel that it was so. 

‘‘ Yes,^"’ said he, in answer to a question of Elizabeth's, “ I 
really am, for some things, happier than I used to be. I feel 
more like what I was in the old days, when I was a little chap 
at Stowbury. Poor old Stowburyl I often think of the place in 
a way that's perfectly ridiculous. Still, if anything happened 
to me, I should* like my aunts to know it, and that 1 didn't 
forget them. " 

‘‘But, sir," asked Elizabeth earnestly, “ do you never mean 
to go near your aunts again?" 


260 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


‘‘ I canH say; it all depends upon circumstances. I sup- 
pose/^ he added, ‘‘if, as is said, one's sin is sure to find one 
out, the same rule goes by contraries. It seems poor Cliffe 
once spoke of me to a district visitor, the only visitor he ever 
had; and this gentleman, hearing of the inquest, came yester- 
day to inquire about him of me; and the end was that he 
oftered me a situation with a person he knew, a very respectable 
chemist in Tottenham Court Road. " 

“ And shall “you go?" 

“ To be sure. I've learned to be thankful for small mercies. 
Nobody will find me out or recognize me. You didn't. Who 
knows? I may even have the honor of dispensing drugs to 
Uncle Ascott of Russell Square. " . 

“ But," said Elizabeth, after a pause, “ you will not always 
remain as John Smith, druggist's shopman, throwing away all 
your good education, and position, and name?" 

“ Elizabeth," said he, in an humbled tone, how dare I ever 
resume my own name and get back my rightful position while 
Peter Ascott lives? Can you or anybody point out a way?" 

She thought the question over in her clear head; clear still, 
even at this hour, when she had to think for others, though all 
personal feeling and interest . were buried in that grave over 
which the sexton was now laying the turf that would soon grow 
smoothly green. 

“ If I might advise, Mr. Leaf, I should say, save up all your 
money, and then go, just as you are, with an honest, bold 
front, right into my master's house, with the fifty pounds in 
your hand — " 

“ By J ove, you've hit it !" cried Ascott, starting up. ‘ ‘ What 
a thing a woman's head is! I've turned over scheme after 
scheme, but I never bnce thought of any so simple as that. 
Bravo, Elizabeth! You're a remarkable woman." 

She smiled — a very sad smile — but she^till felt glad. Any- 
thing that she could possibly do for any creature belonging to 
her dear mistresses seemed to this faithful servant the natural 
and bomiden duty of her life. 

Long after the young man, whose mercurial temperament 
no trouble could repress, had gone away in excellent spirits, 
leaving her an address where she could always find him, and 
give him regular news of his aunts, though he made her prom- 
ise to give them, as yet, no tidings in return, Elizabeth sat still, 
watching the sun decline and the shadows lengthen over the 
field of graves. In the» calmness and beauty of this solitary 
place an equal calm seemed to come over her; a sense of how 
wonderfully events had linked themselves together and worked 


MISTRESS AMD MAID. 


261 


themselves out; how even poor Tom^s mournful death had 
brought about this meeting, which might end in restoring to 
her beloved mistresses their lost sheep, their outcast, miserable 
boy. She did not reason the matter out, but she felt it, and 
felt that in making her in some degree his instrument God had 
been very good to her in the midst of her desolation. 

It seemed Elizabeth's lot always to have to put aside her own 
troubles for the trouble of somebody else, Almost immediately 
after Tom differs death her little Henry feU ill with scar- 
latina, and remained for many months in a state of health so 
fragile as to engross all her thought and carel It was with 
difficulty that she contrived a few times to go for Henryks 
medicines to the shop v^here John Smith served. 

She noticed that every time he looked healthier, brighter, 
freer from that aspect of broken-down respectability which had 
touched her so much. He did not dress any better, but still 
‘‘ the gentleman in him could never be hidden or lost, and he 
said his master treated liim ‘^ "like a gentleman, which was 
apparently a pleasant novelty. 

I have some time to myself also. Shop shuts at nine, and 
I get up at 5 A. M. — bless us! what would my aunt Hilary say! 
and it'’s not for nothing. There are more ways than one of 
turning an honest penny when a young fellow really sets about 
it. Elizabeth, you used to be a literary character yourself; 
look into the and the (naming two popular maga- 

zines), and if you find a series of especially clever papers on 
sanitary reform, and so on, I did ^em!^"^ 

He slapped his chest with Ascott^s merry laugh of old. It 
cheered Elizabeth for a long while afterward. 

By and by she had to take little Henry to Brighton, and 
lost sight of John Smith for some time longer. 

It was on a snowy February day, when having brought the 
child home quite strong, and received unlimited gratitude and 
guineas from the delighted father. Master Henryks faithful 
nurse stood in her usual place at the dining-room door, waiting 
for the interminable grace of “ only five minutes more to be 
over, and her boy carried ignominously but contentedly to bed. 

The footman knocked at the door. ‘‘ A young man wanted 
to speak to master on particular business.'^ 

“ Let him send in his name.-^^ 

“ He says you wouldnT know it, sir.^^ 

“ Show him in, then. Probably a case of charity, as usual. 
Oh!^^ 

And Mr. AscotPs opinion was confirmed by the shabby ap- 


. MISTRESS AMD MAID, 


m 

pearance of the yoimg man with the long beards whom Eliza- 
beth did not wonder he never recognized in the least. 

She ought to have retired, and yet she could not. She hid 
herself partly behind the door, afraid of passing Ascott, dread- 
ing alike- to wound him by recognition or non-recognition. But 
he took no notice. He seemed excessively agitated. 

Come a-begging, young man, I suppose? Wants a situa- 
tion, as hundred do, and think that I have half the clerkships 
in the city at my disposal, and that I am made of money be- 
sides. But i’t^s no good, I tell you, sir; I never give nothing 
to strangers, except-— Here, Henry, my son, take that person 
there this half crown. 

And the httle boy in his pretty purple velvet frock and his 
prettier face, trotted across the room and put the money into 
poor Ascott^s hand. He took it; and then, to the astonish- 
ment of Master Henry, and the still greater astonishment of 
his father, lifted up the child and kissed him. 

‘‘ Young man, young fellow — 

‘‘ I see. you donH know me, Mr. Ascott, and it^s not surpris- 
ing. But I have come to repay you this — he laid a fifty- 
pound note down on the table. Also, to thank you earnestly 
for not prosecuting me, and to say — ” 

Good God!'^ — the sole expletive Peter Ascott had been 
heard to use for long — ‘‘ Ascott Leaf, is that you? I thought 
you were in Australia, or dead, or something. 

“ Ho, Pm alive and here, morels the pity perhaps, except 
that I have lived to pay you back what I cheated you out of. 
What you generously gave me I can^t pay, though I may some 
time. Meantime I have brought you tms. It^s honestly earned. 
Yes — observing the keen doubtful look — though I have 
hardly. a coat to my back, I assure you it^s honestly earned."’^ 

Mr. Ascott made no reply. He stooped over the bank-note, 
examined it, folded it, and put it into his pocket-book; then, 
after another puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared his throat. 

' “ Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry upstairs. 

An hour after, when little Henry'had long been sound asleep, 
and she was sittmg at her usual evening sewing in her solitary 
nursery, Elizabeth learned that the “ shabby young man was 
still in the diningTroom with Mr. Ascott, who had rung for tea 
and some cold meat with it. And the footman stated, with 
undisguised amazement, that the shabby voung man was actu- 
ally sitting at the same table with master! 

Elizabeth smiled to herself, and held her tongue. How, as 
ever, she always kept the secrets of the family. 

About ten o'clock she was summoned to the dining-room. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. ' 


^63 

There stood Peter Ascott, .pompous as ever, but with a cer- 
tain kindly -good-humor lightening his heavy face, looking con- 
descendingly around him, and occasionally rubbing his hands 
slowly together, as if he were exceedingly well-pleased with 
himself. There stood Ascott Leaf, looking bright and hand- 
some in spite of his shabbiness, and quite at his ease — which 
small peculiarity was never likely to be knocked out of him 
under the most depressing circumstances. 

He shook hands with Elizabeth warmly. 

“ I wanted to ajsk you if you had any message for Liverpool. 
I go there to-morrow on business for Mr. Ascott, and afterward 
I shall probably go and see my aunts. He faltered a mo- 
ment, but quickly shook the emotion off. ‘‘ Of course I shall 
tell them all about you, Elizabeth. Any special message, eh?’' 

Only my duty, sir, and Master Henry is quite well again, 
said Elizabeth, formally, and dropping her old-fashioned court-* 
esy; after, which, as quickly as she could, she slipped out of the 
dining-room. 

But long, long after, when all the house was gone to bed, she 
stood at the nursery window, looking down upon the trees of 
the square, that stretched their motionless arms up into the 
moonhght sky- — just' such a moonlight as it was once, more 
than three years ago, the night little Henry was born. And 
she recalled all the past, from the day when Miss Hilary hung 
up her bonnet for her in the house-place at Stowbury; the 
dreary life at No. 15; the Sunday nights when she and Tom 
Cliffe used to go wandering round and round the square. 

“ Poor Tom!” said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, 
and how happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts would 
be to-morrow. Well, Tom would be glad too if he knew all.” 

But happy as everybody was, there was nothing so close to 
Elizabeth’s heart as the one grave over which the snow was 
now lying, white and peaceful, out at Kensal Green. 

Elizabeth is still living — which is a great blessing, for nobody 
could do well without her. She will probably attain a gpod old 
age, being healthy and strong, very equable in temper how, 
and very cheerful too, in her quiet way. Doubtless she will 
yet have Master Henry’s children climbing her knees, and call- 
ing her, Mammy Lizzie.” 

But she will never marry. She never loved anybody but 
Tom. 


IHE END. 


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tective 10c 

23 The Gypsy Detective 10c 

24 The Mysteries and Miseries of 

New York • 10c 

25 Old Terrible 10c 


26 The Smugglers of New York Bay 10c 

27 Manfred, the Magic Trick De- 

tective 10c 

28 Mura, the Western Lady De- 

tective... 10c 

29 Mons. Armaud ; or. The French 

Detective in New York 10c 

30 Lady Kate, the Dashing Female 

Detective (1st half) 10c 

30 Lady Kate, the Dashin^Female 

Detective (2d lialf) 10c 

31 Hamud, the Detective 10c 

32 The Giant Detective in France 

(1st half) 10c 

32 The Giant Detective in France 

(2d half) 10c 

33 The American Detective in ' 

Russia ’. lOc 

34 The Dutch Detective lOc 

35 Old Puritan, the-Old-Tifne Yan- 

kee Detective. (1st half)... . 10c 

35 Old Puritan, the Old-Time Yan- 

, kee Detective. f2d half) .... 10c 

36 Manfred’s Quest; or, The Mys- 

tery of a Trunk (1st half) . . . iOc 

36 Manfred's Quest; or, The M^^s- 

tery of a Trunk (2d half) 10c 

37 Tom Thumb; or. The Wonderful 

Boy Detective (1st half) 10c 

37 Tom Thumb; or, The Wonderful 

Boy Detective (2d half) lOo 

38 Old Ironsides Abroad (1st half). 10c 

38 Old Ironsides Abroad (2d half). 10c 

39 Little Black Tom ; or. The Ad- 


ventures of a Mischievous 

Darky (1st half) 10c 

39 Little Black Tom ; or. The Ad- 
ventures of a Mischievous 
Darky (2d half) lOo 


The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any 
address, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price, 10 cents each. Address 

GEOIIGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing* House, 

iP, O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York, 


MUNRO'S PUBLICATIONS. 

The Seaside Library-Pocket Edition. 


Persons who wish to purchase the following works in a complete 
and unabridged form are cautioned to order and see that they get 
The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, as works published in 
other libraries are frequently abridged and incomplete. Every 
number of The Seaside Library is 

ALWAYS UNCHANGED AND UNABRIDGED. 

Newsdealers w'ishin,ff catalogues of The Sicaside Library, Pocket Edi- 
tion, bearing their imprint, will be supplied on sending their names 
addresses, and number required. 

The works in The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, are printed from 
larger type and on better paper than any other series published. 

The following works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to 
any address, postage free, on receipt of price, by the publisher. 

Address (JEORGrE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

P. O. Box 3751. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 

{When ordering by mail please order by number sJl 


AUTHORS’ LIST. 


Woi'ks by tlie author of “ Addie’s 
Husband.’* 

388 Addie’s Husband ; or. Through 


Clouds to Sunshine 10 

504 My Poor Wife 10 

1046 Jessie. . 20 


Dower.” 

246 A Fatal Dower 20 

372 Plfyllis’ Probation 10 

461 His Wedded Wife 20 

829 The Actor’s Ward — 20 

Works by the author of ” A Great 
Mistake.” 

244 A Great Mistake 20 

588 Cherry 10 

1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal. 1st half... 20 
1040 Clarissa's Ordeal. 2d half — 20 

Works by tli*e author of ‘‘A 
Woiiian's Love-Story-” 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

677’Griselda 20 

Mrs. Alexander’s Works. 

5 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

17 The Wooing O’t 20 

62 The Executor 20 

189 Valerie’s Fate 10 

229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? 10 

236 Which Shall it Be? 20 

339 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. . 10 
490 A Second Life 20 


564 At Bay 10 

794 Beaton’s Bargain. 20 

797 Look Before You Leap 20 

806 The Freres. 1st half 20 

805 The Freres. 2d half 20 

806 Her Dearest Foe. 1st half.... 20 
806 Her Dearest Foe. 2d half.... 20 

814 The Heritage of Langdale 20 

815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 10 

900 By Woman’s Wit 20 

997 Forging the Fetters, and The 

Australian Aunt 20 

1054 Mona’s Choice 20 

Alison’s Works. 

194 “ So Near, and Yet So Far I” . . . 10 

278 For Life and Love fU 

481 The House That Jack Built. ... 10 

F. Anstey’s Woi’ks. 

59 Vice Versa 20 

225 The Giant’s Robe 20 

503 The Tinted Venus. A Farcical 

Rorhance 10 

819 A Fallen Idol 20 

R. M. Ballantyne’s Works. 

89 The Red Eric 10 

95 The Fire Brigade 10 

96 Erling the JBold 10 

772 Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood 

Trader *20 

S. Baring-Goiild’s Works. 

787 Court Royal 20 

878 Little Tu’penny 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRART—Pocket Edition. 

■ ■ ■ - — " 


Basil’s Works. 

344 ■“ Tlie Wearing of the Green ” . . 20 

547 A Coquette’s Conquest 20 

585 A Drawn Game 20 

Anne Beale’s Works* 

188 Idonea .y 20 

199 The Fisher Village. 10 

Walter Besant’s Works. 

97 All in a Garden Fair 20 

137 Uncle Jack 10 

140 A Glorious Fortune 10 

14G Love Finds the Way, and Other 

Stories. By Besant and Rice 10 

230 Dorothy Forster 20 

324 In Luck at Last 10 

541 Uncle Jack 10 

651 “ Self or Bearer ” 10 

882 Children of Gibeon 20 

904 The Holy Rose. 10 

906 The World Went Very Well 

Then 20 

980 To Call Her Mine 20 

1055 Katharine Regina ; 20 

M. Betham-Edwards’s Works. 

273 Love and Mirage ; or, The Wait- 
ing on an Island 10 

579 The Flower of Doom, and Other 

Stories 10 

694 Doctor Jacob 20 

1023 Next of Kin— Wanted 20 

William Black’s Works. 

1 Yolande 20 

18 Shandon Bells 20 

21 Suni’ise : A Story of These 

Times 20 

23 A Princess of Thule 20 

39 In Silk Attire 20 

44 Macleod of Dare. 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch 20 

60 The Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro- 

- mance 10 

78 Madcap Violet 20 

81 A Daughter of Heth 20 

124 Three Feathers . . 20 

125 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. 20 

126 Kilmeny 20 

138 Gi’een Pastures and Piccadilly. 20 


265 Judith Shakespeare : Her Love 

Affairs and Other Adventures 20 
472 The Wise Women of Inverness. 10 

627 White Heather 20 

898 Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of 

Two Young-Fools 20 

962 Sabina Zembi a. First half 20 

962 Sabina Zembra. Second half. . 20 

B. D. Blackmore’s Works* 

67 Lorna Doone. 1st half 20 

67 Lorna Doone. 2d half.- 20 

427 The Remarkable History of Sir 
Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P. 20 


615 Mary Anerley 20 

625 Erema; or, My Father’s Sin . . . 20 

629 Cripps, the Carrier • 20 

630 Cradock Nowell. First half. . . 20 

630 Cradock Nowell. Second half. 20 

631 Christo well. A Dartmoor Tale 20 

632 < 'lara Vaughan 20 

6-33 The Maid of Sker. First half. . 

633 The Maid of Sker. Second half 

636 Alice Lorraine. First half 

636 Alice Lorraine. Second half.. 

926 Springhaven. First half 

926 Springhaven. Second half — 


Miss M. E. Bradflon’s Woi’ks. 

35 Lady Audley’s Secret 

66 Phantom Fortune 

74 Aurora Floyd 

110 Under the Red Flag. . 

153 The Golden Calf 

204 Vixen 

211 The Octoroon 

234 Barbara ; or, Splendid Misery. . 

263 An Ishmaelite. . , 

315 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1884. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 

434 Wyllard’s Weird 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Parti 

478 Diavola; cr. Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Part II 

480 Married in Haste. Edited by 
Miss M. E. Braddon 

487 Put to the Test.' Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 

488 Joshua Haggard's Daughter.. . . 

489 Rupert Godwin 

495 Mount Royal 

496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 

497 The Lady's Mile 

498 Only a Clod 

499 The Cloven Foot 

611 A Strange World . . . ; ; . . . 

515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant 

524 Strangers and Pilgrims 

629 The Doctor’s Wife 

542 Ferwon’s Quest 

,544 Cut by the County; or, Grace 

Darnel 

548 The Fatal Marriage, and The 

Shadow in the Corner 

549 Dudley Carleon ; or. The Broth- 

er’s Secret, and George Caul- 
field’s Journey 

552 Hostages to Fortune 

553 Birds of Prey 

554 Charlotte’s Inheritance. (Se- 

quel to “ Birds of Prey ”) 

557 To the Bitter End.. 

559 Taken at the Flood 

660 Asphodel 

661 Just as I am ; or, A Living Lie 

667 Dead Men’s Shoes. 

570 John Marchmont’s Legacy. . . . 

618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 


ggggggg ggS S S gggBggggg B B BB^BB^BBB 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition. 


3 


Miss M. E. Braddou’s Works 

(continued.) 

840 One Thin^ Needful; or. The 


Penalty of Fate 20 

881 Mohawks. First half 20 

881 Mohawks. Second half ^ 

890 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1886. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

943 Weavers and Weft; or, “ Love 
that Hath Us in His Net ”... . 20 
947 Publicans and Sinners; or, 
Lucius Davoren. First half.. 20 
947 Publicans and Sinners; or, 
Lucius Davoren. Second half 20 
1036 Like and Unlike 20 


Works by Charlotte M. Braeme* 


Author of “ Bora Thorne.” 

19 Her Mother’s Sin r 10 

51 Dora Thorne 20 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring 20 

68 A Queen Amongst Women 10 

69 Madolin’s Lover 20 

73 Redeemed by Love; or, Love’s 

Victory 20 

76 Wife in Name Only; or, A 

Broken Heart 20 

79 Wedded and Parted 10 

92 Lord Lynne’.s Choice 10 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms . . 10 

190 Romance of a Black Veil 10 

220 Which Loved Him Best? 10 

237 Repented at Leisure. (Large 

type edition) 20. 

967 Repented at Leisure 10 

249 ” Prince Charlie’s Daughter ”. . 10 

250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di- 

ana’s Discipline. 10 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair 

. but False 10 

283 The Sin of a Lifetime; or, Viv- 
ien’s Atonement 10 

287 At War W'ith Herself 10 

923 At War With Herself. (Large 

type edition) 20 

288 From Gloom to Sunlight; or, 

From Out the Gloom 10 

955 From Gloom to Sunlight; or. 
From Out the Gloom. (Large 
type editioji)- . 20 

291 Love’s Warfare 10 

292 A Golden Heart 10 

29.3 The Shadow of a Sin 10 

948 The Shadow of a Sin. (Large 

type edition) 20 

294 HihUi; or. The False Vow 10 

928 Hilda; or. The False Vow. 

(Large type edition) 20 

295 A Woman’s War 10 

952 A Woman’s War. (Large type 

edition) 20 

296 A Rose in Thorns 10 

297 Hilary’s Folly ; cr. Her Marriage 

Vow 10 


953 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Mar- 
riage Vow. (Large type edi- 
tion). . 20 


299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride 

from the Sea 10 

300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 

Love 10 

303 Ingledew House, and More Bit- 

ter than Death 10 

304 In Cupid’s Net 10 

305 A Dead Heart, and Lady (Gwen- 

doline’s Dream 10 

306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for 

a Day 10 

307 Two Kisses, and Like no Other 

Love 10 

308 Beyond Pardon 20 

322 A Woman's Love-Story 10 

323 A Willful Maid 20 

411 A Bitter Atonement 20 

433 My Sister Kate 10 

459 A Woman’s Temptation. (Large 

type edition) 20 

951 A Woman’s Temptation 10 

460 Under a Shadow 20 

465 The Earl’s Atonement ^ 

466 Between Two Loves 20 

467 A Struggle for a Ring 20 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret; or, A 

Guiding Star 20 

470 Evelyn’s Folly 20 

471 Thrown on the World ^ 

476 Between Two Sins; or, Married 

in Haste 10 

516 Put Asunder; or. Lady Castle- 

maine’s Divorce 20 

576 Her Martyrdom . ^ 

626 A Fair Mystery 20 

741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; or. 
The Romance of a Young 

Girl. 20 

745 For Ahbther’s Sin ; or, A Strug- 
gle for Love 20 

792 Set in Diamonds 20 

821 The World Between Them 20 

8.53 A True Magdalen 20 

854 A Woman’s Error 20 

922 Marjorie 20 


924 ’Twixt Smile and Tear.. 20 

927 Sweet Cymbeline 20 

929 The Belle of Lynn; or. The 

Miller's Daughter 20 

931 Lady Diana's Pride 20 

949 Claribel’s LoveStory ; or,Love’s 

Hidden Depths 20 

958 A Haunted Life ; or. Her Terri- 
ble Sin , . 20 

969 The My.stery of Colde Fell; or. 

Not Proven -20 

973 The Squire’s Darling 20 

975 A Darlc Marriage Morn 20 

978 Her Second Love 20 

982 The Duke's Secret 20 

985 On Her Wedding Morn, and 
The Mystery of the Holly-Tree 20 
988 The Shattered Idol, and Letty 

Leigh 20 

990 The Earl’s Error, and Arnold's 

Promise... 20 

995 An Unnatural Bondage, and 

That Beautiful Ijady 20 

1006 His Wife’s Judgment 20 


4 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 


6 


Charlotte M. Braeine’s Works 

(continued.) 


1008 A Thorn in Her Heart 20 

1010 Golden Gates 20 

1012 A Nameless Sin 20 

1014 A Mad Love 20 

1031 Irene’s Vow. ; 20 

1052 Signa’s Sweetheart ? 20 

Charlotte Bronte’s Works. 

15 Jane Eyre... 20 

57 Shirley 20 

944 The Professor 20 

Rhoda Broughton’s Works. 

86 Belinda 20 

101 Second Thoughts 20 

227 Nancy 20 

645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains 10 

758 “ Good-bye, Sweetheart!” 20 

765 Not Wisely, But Too Well 20 

767 Joan 20 

768 Red as a Rose is She ^ 

769 Cometh Up as a ^ower 20 

862 Betty’s Visions 10 

894 Doctor Cupid 20 

Mary E. Brj'an’s Works. 

731 The Bayou Bride 20 

857 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the 

Red House. 1st half 20 

857 Kildee; or. The Sphinx of the 
Red House. 2d half 20 

Robert Buchanan’s Works. 

145 “ Storm-Beaten God and The 

Man 20 

154 Annan Water 20 

181 The New Abelard 10 

398 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan 10 

646 The Master of the Mine 20 

692 That Winter Night; or, Love’s 

Victory 10 

Captain Fred Burnaby’s Works. 

375 A Ride to Khiva 20 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 

Minor 20 

E. Fairfax Byrrne’s Works. 

521 Entangled 20 

538 A Fair Country Maid. 20 

Hall Caine’s Works. 

445 The Shadow of a Crime 20 

520 She’s All the World to Me. . . . . : 10 

Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron’s Works. 

695 A North Country Maid 20 

796 In a Grass Country. ; 20 

891 Vera Nevill; or, Poor Wisdom’s 

Chance 20 

9i2 Pure Gold. 1st half 20 

912 Pure Gobi. 2d half 20 

963 Worth Winning ^ 


1025 Daisy’s Dilemma 20 


Rosa Nonchette Carey’s Works..^ 


215(Not Like Other Girls 20 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement 20 

551 Barbara Heathcote’s Trial. 1st 

half 20 

551 Barbara Heathcofe’s Trial. 2d 

half 20 

608 For Lilias. 1st half ... 20 

608 For^Lilias. 2d half 20 

930 Uncle Max. 1st half 20 

930 Uncle Max. 2d half 20 

932 Queenie’s Whim. 1st half 20 

932 Queenie’s Whim. 2d half ^ 


934 Wooed and Married. 1st half. 20 
934 Wooed and Married. 2d half. 20 
936 Nellie’s Memories. 1st half. . . 20 
936 Nellie’s Memoides. 2d half... 20 


961 Wee Wifie 20 

1033|^sther: A Story for Girls 20 

Lewis Carroll’s Works. 

462 Alice’s Adventures in \Vonder- 
land. Illustrated by John 

Tenniel 20 

780 Through the Looking-Glass, 
and What Alice Found There. 


Illustrated by John Tenniel. . 20 

Wilkie Collins’s Works. 


52 The New Magdalen 10 

102 The Moonstone 20 

167 Heart and Science. 20 * 

168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

175 Love’s Random Shot, and 

Other Stories 10 

233 “ I Say No ;” or, The Love-Let- 
ter Answered 20 

508 The Girl at- the Gate 10 

591 The Queen of Hearts 20 

613 The Ghost’s Touch, and Percy 

and the Prophet 10 

623 My Lady’s Money lO 

701 The Woman in White. 1st half 20 

701 The Woman in White. 2d half 20 

702 Man and Wife. 1st half. 20 

702 Man and Wife. 2d half 20 

764 The Evil Genius ^ 

896 The Guilty River 20 

946 The Dead Secret . 20 

977 The Haunted Hotel 20 

1029 Armadale. 1st half. 20 

1029 Armadale. 2d half 20 

Mabel Collins’s Works. 

749 Lord Vanecourt’s Daughter 20 

828 The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw 20 

Hugli Conway’s Works. 

240 Called Back 10 

251 The Daughter of the Stars, and 
Other Tales 10 

301 Dark Days 10 

302 The Blatchford Bequest 10 

502 Carriston’s Gift 10 

525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition, 


S 


Hugh Conway’s Works 

<CONTINUED.) 

543 A Family Affair 20 

601 Slings and Arrows, and Other 

Stories 10 

711 A Cardinal Sin 20 

804 Living or Dead 20 

830 Bound by a Spell 20 

J. Feniniore Cooper’s Works. 

60 The Last of the Mohicans 20 

63 The Spy 20 

309 The Pathfinder ^ 

310 The Prairie 20 

318 The Pioneers; or. The Sources 

of the Susquehanna 20 

349 The Two Admirals 20 

359 The Water-Witch 20 

361 The Red Rover 20 

373 Wing and Wing 20 

378 Homeward Bound; or. The 

Chase 20 

379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

“ Homeward Bound”) 20 

380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted 

Knoll 20 

385 The Headsman;’ or, The Ab- 

baye des Vignerons 20 

394 The Bravo.. 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln; or. The Leag- 
uer of Boston 20 

400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish. . . 20 

413 Afioat and Ashore 20 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to 

“ Afloat and Ashore ”) 20 

415 The Ways of the Hour.... 20 

416 Jack Tier; or. The Florida Reef 20 

419 TheChainbearer; or,The Little- 

page Manuscripts 20 

420 Satanstofe; or. The Littlepage 

Manuscripts 20 

421 The Redskins; or, Indian and 

In jin. Being the conclusion 
of the Littlepage Manuscripts 20 

422 Precaution 20 

423 The Sea Lions; or. The Lost 

Sealers 20 

424 Mercedes of Castile; or. The 

Voyage to Cathay 20 

425 The C)ak-Openings ; or, The Bee- 

Hunter 20 

431 The Monikins 20 


Georglana M. Craik’s Works. 


450 Godfrey Helstone 20 

606 Mrs. Hollyer 20 


B. M. C.rok«r’s Works. 


207 Pretty Miss Neville 20 

260 Proper Pride 10 

412 Some One Else 20 


May Croinmeliu’s Works. 


452 In the West Countrie. 20 

619 Joy ; or. The Light of Cold- 

Home Ford. 20 

647 Goblin Gold 10 


Alphonse Daudet’s Works. 

534 Jack 20 

574 The Nabob: A Story of Parisian 

Life and Manners 20” 

Charles Dickens’s Works. 

10 The Old Curiosity Shop 20 

22 David Copperfield. Vol. 1 20 

22 David Copperfield. Vol. II 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. 1 20 

21 Pickwick Papers. Vol. 11 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. First half. 20. 
37 Nicholas Nickleby. Second half ^ 

41 Oliver Twist 20 

77 A Tale of Two Cities 20 

84 Hard Times 10 

91 Barnaby Rudge. 1st half 20 

91 Barnaby Rudge. 2d half 20 

94 Little Dorrit. P'irst half 20 

94 Little Dorrit. Second half ^ 

106 Bleak House. • First half 20 

106 Bleak House. Second half 20 

107 Dornbey and Son. 1st half .... 20 

107 Dornbey and Son. 2d half 20 

108 The Cricket on the Hearth, and 

Doctor Marigold., 10 

131 Our Mutual Friend. (Isthalf). 20 

131 Our Mutual Friend. (2d half).. 20 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock 10 

152 The Uncommercial Traveler. .. 20 

168 No Thoroughfare.' By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

169 The Haunted Man 10 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. First half 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 
Chuzzlewit. Second half 20 

439 Great Expectations 20 

440 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings 10 

447 American Notes 20 

448 Pictures From Italy, and The 

Mudfog Papers, &c 20 

454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood . . 20 
456 Sketclies by Boz. Illustrative 
of Every-day Life and Every- 
day People 20 

676 A Child’s History of England. . 20 

Sai'ali Doudney’s Works. 

338 The Family Difficulty 10 

679 Where Two Ways Meet 10 

F. Du Boisgoliey’s Works. 

82 Sealed Lips 20 

104 The Coral Pin. 1st half 20 

104 The Coral Pin. 2d half 20 

264 Pi6douche, a French Detective. 10 
328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. 

First half 20 

328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner, 

Second hal f 20 

453 The Lottery Ticket 20 

475 The Prima' Donna’s Husband.. 20 

522 Zig-Zag, the Clown; or, The 

Steel Gauntlets.., 20 

523 The Consequences of a Duel. A 

Parisian Romance 20 

648 The Angel of the Bells.. 20 


6 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition, 


F. Du Boisgobey’s Works 

(CONTINUEX).) 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 1st half — : 20 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 2d half 20 

699 The Sculptor’s Daughter. 1st 

half 20 

699 The Sculptor's Daughter. "i2d 

half 20 

782 The Closed Door. 1st half 20 

782 The Closed Door. 2d half 20 

851 The Cry of Blood. 1st half — 20 
851 The Cry of Blood. 2d half. .... 20 

918 The Red Band. 1st half 20 

918 The Red Band. 2d half 20 

942 Cash on Delivery 20 

“The Duclie8s'’s” Works. 

2 Molly Bawn 20 

6 Portia 20 

14 Aiiy Fairy Lilian 10 

16 Phyllis ■. 20 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey. (Large type 

edition) 20 

950 Mrs. Geoffrey 10 

29 Beauty’s Daughters 10 

30 Faith and Unfaith 20 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and 

Eric Dering 10 

119 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d. . . 10 

123 Sweet is True Love 10 

129 Rossmoyue 10 

134 The Witching Hour, and Other 

Stories 10 

136 “That Last Rehearsal,” and 

Other Stories 10 

166 Moonshine and Marguerites — 10 
171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other 

Stories 10 

284 Doris 10 

312 A Week’s Amusement; or, A 

Week in Killarney 10 

342 The Baby, and One New Year’s 

Eve 10 

390 Mildred Trevanion 10 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories..’ 10 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart 20 

494 A Maiden All Forlorn, and Bar- 
bara 10 

517 A Passive Crime, and Other 

Stories 10 

541 “As It Fell Upon a Day.” 10 

738 Lady Branksmere. 20 

771 A Mental Struggle 20 

785 The flaunted Chamber 10 

862 Ugly Barrington 10 

875 Lady Valworth’s Diamonds. . . 20 
1009 In an Evil Hour, and Other 

Stories 20 

1016 A Modern Circe 20 

1035 The Duchess ^ 

Alexander Dumas’s Works. 

55 The Three Guardsmen . . ...... 20 

75 Twenty Years After 20 

259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A 
Sequel to “The Count of 
. Monte-Cristo ” 10 


262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part I 80 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part II 30 

717 Beau Taucrede; or. The Mar- 
riage Verdict 20 

George Ebers’s Works. 

474 Serapis. An Historical Novel 20 

983 Uarda 20 

10.56 The Bride of the Nile. 1st half 20 
1056 The Bride of the Nile. 2d half 20 

Maria Edgeworth’s Works. 

708 Ormond 20 

788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 20 

Mrs. Annie Edwards’s Works. 

644 A Girton Girl ■ 20 

834 A Ballroom Repentance 20 

835 Vivian the Beauty 20 

836 A Point of Honor 20 

837 A Vagabond Heroine 10 

838 Ought We to Visit Her? 20 

839 Leah: A Woman of Fashion... 20 

841 Jet: Her Face or Her Fortune? 10 

842 A Blue-Stocking 10 

843 Archie Lovell 20 

844 Susan Fielding 20 

845 Philip Earuscliffe; or. The Mor- 

als of May Fair 20 

846 Steven Lawrence. First half. 20 

846 Steven Lawrence. Second half 20 
850 A Plaj^ Wright’s Daughter 10 

Geprge Eliot’s Works. 

3 The Mill on the Floss 20 

31 /Middleniarch. 1st half ^ 

SliMiddlemarch. 2d half 20 

34 Daniel Deronda. 1st half ^ 

34 Daniel Deronda. 2d half 20 

36 Adam Bede. 1st half ^ 

36 Adam Bede. 2d half 20 

42 Romola 20 

693 Felix Holt, the Radical ^ 

707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of 

Raveloe 10 

728 Janet’s Repentance 10 

762 Impressions of Theophrastus 
Such 10 

B. li. FarjeoiPs Works. 

179 Little Make-Believe 10 

573 Love’s Harvest 20 

607 Self-Doomed- 10 

616 The Sacred Nugget . . 20 

6-57 Christmas Angel 10 

907 The Bright Star of Life 20 

909 The Niue of Hearts 20 

G. Manville Feun’s Works. 

193 The Rosery Folk 10 

558 Poverty Corner 20 

587 The Parson o’ Dumford 20 

609 The Dark House. 10 


o 


i’HE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition: 7 


Octave Feuillet’s Works* 

66 The Romance of a Poor Young 


Man 10 

386 Led Astray : or, “ La Petite 
Comtesse’^ 10 

Airs. Forrester’s Works. 

80 June 20 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- 
ciety 10 

484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

Other Tales 10 

715 I Have Lived and Loved 20 

721 Dolores'. 20 

724 My Lord and My Lady 20 

726 My Hero 20 

727 Fair Women 20 

729 Mignon ^ 

732 From Olympus to Hades 20 

734 Viva 20 

736 Roy and Viola 20 

740 Rhooa 20 

744 Diana Carew; or, For a Wom- 
an’s Sake 20 

883 Once Again 20 

Jessie Fothergill’s Works. 

314 Peril ". 20 

572 Healey 20 

935 Borderland 2C 

R. £. Fraucillon’s Works. 

135 A Great Heire.ss: A Fortune 

in Seven Checks 10 

319 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

Fables 10 

360 Ropes of Sand 20 

656 The Golden Flood. By R. E. 

Francillon and Wm. Senior. . 10 
911 Golden Bells 20 


Emile Gaboriau’s Works. 

7 File No. 113 20 

12 Other People’s Money 20 

20 Within an Inch of His Life... 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol 1 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol. II 20 

33 The Clique of Gold 20 

38 The Widow Lerouge 20 

43 The Mystery of Orcival 20 

144 Promises of Marriage 10 

979 The Count’s Secret. Part I.. . 20 
979 The Count’s Secret. Part II.. 20 

1002 Marriage at a Venture 20 

1015 A Thousand Francs Reward.. 20 


Charles Gibbon’s Works. 

64 A Maiden Fair... 10 

317 By Mead and Stream 20 


James Grant’s Works. 

566 The Royal Highlanders ; or. 
The Black Watch in Egypt. . . 
781 The Secret Dispatch 


Miss Grant’s Works. 

222 The Sun-Maid 20 

555 Cara^Roma 20 

\ 

Arthur Griffiths’s Works. 

614 No. 99 10 

680 Fast and Loose 20 

H. Rider Haggard’s Works. 
43‘2 The Witch’s Head . ‘20 

753 King Solomon’s Mines 20 

910 She: A History of Adventure. 20 

941 Jess 20 

959 Dawn 20 

989 Allan Quatermain 20 

1049 A Tale of Three Lions, and On 
Going Back 20 

Thomas Hardy’s Works. 

139 The Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 10 

530 A Pair of Blue Eyes 20 

690 Far From the Maddinc Ci’owd. 20 
791 The Mayor of Casterbridge. ... 20 

945 The Trumpet-Major 20 

957 The Woodlauders. 20 

John B. Harwood’s Works. 

143 One False, Both Fair 20 

358 Within the Clasp ^ 

Mary Cecil Hhy’s Works. 

65 Back to the Old Home 10 

72 Old Myddelton's Money 20 

196 Hidden Perils 20 

197 For Her Dear Sake 20 

224 The Arundel Motto 20 

The Squire’s Legacy 20 

290 Nora’s Love Test-. 20 

408 Lester’s Secret 20 

678 Dorothy’s Venture 20 

716 Victor and Vanquished...., .. . 20 

849 A Wicked Girl 20 

987 Brenda Yorke 20 

1026 A Dark Inheritance 20 

Mrs. Cashel-Hoey’s Works. 

313 The Lover’s Creed 20 

802 A Stern Chase 20 

Tighe Hopkins’s, Works. 

509 Nell Haffenden 20 

714 ’Twixt Love and Duty 20 

Works by the Author of “Judith 
Wynne.” 

332 Judith Wynne 20 

506 Lady Lovelace 20 

William H. G. Kingston’s Works. 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. 20 

133 Peter the Whaler 10 

761 Will Weatherhelm 20 

783 The Midshipman, Marmaduke 
Merity 20 


8 


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Vernon Lee’s Works. 

399 Miss Brown 20 

859 Ottilie: An Eij^hteenth Century 
Idyl. By Vernon Lee. The 
Prince of the 100 Soups. Edit- 
ed by Vernon Lee 20 

diaries Lever’s Works^ 

191 Harry Lorrequer 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish Di'a- 

goon. First half 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dra- 
goon. Second half 20 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” First 

half 20 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” Sec- 
ond half 20 

Mary liinskill’s Works. 

473 A Lost Sou 20 

620 Between the Heather and (he 
Northern Sea . 20 


Mrs. E. Lynn Linton’s Works. 

122 lone Stew'art 20 

817 Stabbed in the Dark 10 

886 Paston Carew, Millionaire and 
Miser 20 

Samuel Lover’s Works, 

663 Handy Andy 20 

664 Rory O’More.. 20' 

Sir E. Bulwer Lytron’s Works. 

40 The Last Days of Pompeii 20 

83 A Strange Story 20 

90 Ernest Maltravers 20 

130 The Last of the Barons. First 

half 20 

180 The Last of the Barons. Sec- 
ond half 20 

162 Eugene Aram ^ 

164 Leila; or. The Siege of Grenada 10 
650 Alice; or. The Mysteries. (A Se- 
quel to “ Ernest Maltravers ”) 20 
720 Paul Clifford 20 

George Macdonald’s Works. 

282 Donal Grant 20 

325 The Portent.. 10 

326 Phantasies. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women 10 

722 Wliat’s Mine’s Mine 20 

1041 Home Again. . . .*. 20 

Katharine S. Macqiioid’s Works. 

479 Louisa 20 

914 Joan Wentworth 20 


E. Marlitt’s Works. 

652 The Lady with the Rubies 20 

858 Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret 20 

972 Gold Elsie 20 

999 The Second Wife 20 


Florence Marryat’s Works. 

159 Captain Norton’s Diary, and 


A Moment of Madness 10 

183 Old Coutrairy, and Other 

Stories 10 

208 The Ghost of Ciiarlotte Cray, 

and Other Stories 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses. . . 10 
444 The Heart of Jane Warner., .. 20 

449 Peeress and Player 20 

,689 The Heir Presumptive 20 

825 The Master Passion 20 

860 Her Lord and Master 20 

861 My Sister the Actress 20 

863 “My Own Child.” 20 

864 “ No Intentions.” 20 

865 Written in Fire 20 

860 Miss Harrington’s Husband; 

or, Spiders of Society 20 

867 The Girls of Fevershaip 20 

868 Petronel 20 

869 The Poison of Asps .... 10 

870 Out of His Reckoning 10 

872 With Cupid’s Eyes 20 

873 A Harvestof Wild Oats... 20 

877 Facing the Footlights 20 

893 Love’s Conflict. 1st half 20 

893 Love’s Conflict. 2d half ^ 

895 A Star and a Heart 10 

897 Ange 20 

899 A Little Stepson 10 

901 A Luckj’- Disappointment 10 

903 Phyllida 20 

905 The Fair-Haired Alda ^ 

939 Why Not? 20 

993 Figiiting the Air 20 

998 Open Sesame. 20 

1004 Mad Dumaresq 20 

1013 The Confessions of Gerald Est- 

court 20 

1022 Driven to Bay ^ 


Captain Marryat’s Works, 

88 The Privateersman 20 

272 The Littfe Savage '. . 10 

991 Mr. Midshipman Easy 20 


Helen B. Mathers’s Works. 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal 10 

221 Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye 20 

438 Found Out 10 

535 Murder or Manslaughter? 10 

673 Story of a Sin 20 

713 “ Clierry Ripe ” 20 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart 20 

798 The Fashion of tins World 10 

799 My Lady Green Sleeves 20 

Justin McCarthy’s Works. 

121 Maid of Athens 20 

602 Camiola . 20 

685 England Under Gladstone. 

1880-1885 20 

747 Our Sensation Novel. Edited 
by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P. . 10 
779 Doom ! An Atlantic Episode. . . 10 


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Mrs* Alex. McVeigh Miller’s 
Works. 

267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls’ 

Conspiracy 20 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or, The 

Miser’s Treasure 20 

269 Lancaster’s Choice , 20 

316 Sworn to Silence; or. Aline ; 

Rodney’s Secret 20 

Jean Middlemas’s Works. 

155 Lady Muriel’s Secret 20 

539 Silvermead 20 

Alan Muii’’s Works. 

172 “Golden Girls’’ 20 

346 Tumbledown Farm 10 


Miss Mulock’s Woi’ks. 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. 1st 


half 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. 2d 

half 20 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a House- 

Boat 10 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story 20 

1018 Two Marriages 20 

1088 Mistress and Maid 20 

1053 Young Mrs. Jardine ; . . . . 20 

David Christie Murray’s Works. 

.58 By the Gate of the Sea 10 

195 “ The Way of the World ” 20 

320 A Bit of Human Nature 10 

661 Rainbow Gold 20 

674 First Person Singular 20 

691 Valentine Strange 20 

695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and 

Deuce 20 ' 

698 A Life’s Atonement 20 

737 Aunr, Rachel 10 

826 Cynic Fortune 20 

898 Bulldog and Butterfly, and Julia 
and Her Romeo 20 


Works by the author of “My 
Ducats aud My Daughter.” 

376 The Crime of Christmas Day. 10 
596 My Ducats and My Daughter. .. 20 

W. E. Norris’s Works. 


184 Thirlby Hall 20 

277 A Man of His Word 10 

355 That Terrible Man 10 

500 Adrian Vidal : 20 

824 Her Own Doing 10 

848 My Friend Jim 20 

871 A Bachelor’s Blunder; 20 

1019 Major and Minor, l.st half 20 

1019 Major and Minor. 2d half 20 


Laurence Oliphaut’s Works. 


47 Altiora Peto 20 

537 Piccadilly 10 


Mrs. Oliphant’s Works* 


45 A Little Pilgrim 10 

177 Salem Chapel. 20 

205 The Minister’s Wife 80 


321 The Prodigals, and Their In- 
heritance 10 

337 Memoirs and Resolutions of 
Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 
including some Chronicles of 

the Borough of Fendie 20 

345 Madam ^ 

351 The House on the Moor ^ 

357 John ^ 

370 Lucy Crofton .'. .. 10 

371 Maj’garet Maitland 20 

377 Magdalen Hepburn : A Story of 

the Scottish Reformation 20 

402 Lilliesleaf ; or, Passages in the 


Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait- 
land of Sunnyside 20 

410 Old Lady Mary 10 

527 The Davs of My Life 20 

528 At His Gates 20 

568 The Perpetual Curate 20 

569 Harry Muir 20 

603 Agnes. 1st half 20 

603 Agnes. 2d half 20 

604 Innocent., 1st half 20 

604 Innocent. 2d half 20 

605 Ombra...’ 20 

645 Oliver’s Bride 10 

655 The Open Door,and The Portrait 10 

687 A Country Gentleman 20 

703 A House Divided Agait)st Itself 20 
710 The Greatest Heiress in England 20 

827 Effie Ogilvie 20 

880 The Son of His Father 20 

902 A Poor Gentleman 20 


“ Ouida’s ” Works. 


4 ’Under Two Flags 20 

9 Wanda, Countess von Szalras. ^ 

116 Moths 20 

128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches 10 

226 Friendship 20 

228 Princess Napraxine ^ 

238 Pascarel 20 

239 Signa 20 

433 A Rainy June 10 

639 Othmar. 1st half 20 

639 Othmar. 2d half.... 20 

671 Don Gesualdo lO 

672 In Maremma. First half 20 

672 In Maremma. Second half.. . 20 
874 A House Party 10 


974 Strathmore; or, Wrought by 
His Own Hand. First half.. 20 
974 Strathmore; or. Wrought by 
His Own Hand. Second half 20 
981 Granvillede Vigne; or. Held in 


Bondage. First half 20 

981 Granville de 'Vigne; or. Held in 

Bondage. Second half 20 

996 Idalia. First half 20 

996 Idalia. Second half 20 

1000 Puck. First half 20 

1000 Puck. Second half 20 

1003 Chandos. First half 20 

1003 Chandos. Second half 20 

1017 Tricotrin. 1st half 20 

1017 Tricotrin. 2d half 20 


10 


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James Payn’s Woi*ks. 

48 Thicker Than Water 20 

186 The Canon’s Ward 20 

343 Tlie Talk of the Town 20 

577 In Peril and Privation 10, 

589 The Luck of the Darrells 20 

8^ The Heir of the Ages 20 

Miss Jane Porter’s Works. 

660 The Scottish Chiefs. 1st half.. 20 
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 2d half.. 20 
696 Thaddeus of Warsaw 20 


W. Clark RusselPs Works* 


85 A Sea Queen v 

109 Little Loo 

180 Bound the Galley Fire 

209 John Holdsworth. Chief Mate. 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 

592 A Strange Voyage 

682 In the Middle Watch. Sea 

Stories 

743 Jack’s Courtship. 1st half... 
743 Jack’s Courtship. 2d half.... 

884 A Voyage to the Cape 

916 The Golden Hope 

1044 The Frozen Pirate 


20 


Cecil Power’s Works* 


S36 Philistia 20 

611 Babylon 20 


Adeline Sergeant’s Works. 

257 Beyund Recall. 

812 No Saint 


Mrs* Campbell Praed’s Works* 


428 Zero: A Story of Monte-Carlo. 10 

477 Affinities , 10 

811 The Head Station 20 


Eleanor C* Price’s Works* 

173 The Foreigners 20 

331 Gerald 20 


Charles Reade’s Works* 

46 Very Hard Cash t 20 

98 A Woman-Hater 20 

206 The Picture, and Jack of All 

Trades ; 10 

210 Readiana: Comments on Cur- 
rent Events 10 

213 A Terrible Temptation. 20 

214 Put Yourself in His Place 20 

216 Foul Play 20 

231 Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy... 20 

232 Love and Money ; or, A Perilous 

Secret 10 

235 “It is Never Too Late to 
Mend.” A Matter-of-Fact Ro- 
mance 20 


Mrs* J* H. Riddell’s Works. 

71 A Struggle for Fame 20 

593 Berna Boyle 20 

1007 Miss Gascoigne 20 


“Rita’s” Works. 

252 A Sinless Secret 10 

446 Dame Durden 20 

598 “ Corinna.” A Study 10 

617 Like Dian’s Kiss 20 

F. W. Robinson’s Works* 

157 Hilly ’8 Hero 20 

217 The Man She Cared For 20 

261 A Fair Maid 20 

455 Lazarus in London 20 

599 Tlie Courting of Mary Smith. . 20 

1005 99 Dark Street 20 


Sir Walter Scott’s Works* 

28 Ivanhoe 

201 The Monastery 

202 The Abbot. (Sequel to “The 

Monastery ”) .- 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Le- 
gend of Montrose 

362 The Bride of Lammermoor. . . . 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter 

864 Castle Dangerous ; 

391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian 

392 Peveril of the Peak 

393 The Pirate. 

401 Waverley 

417 The Fair Maid of Pei’th; or, St. 

Valentine’s Day 

418 St. Ronan’s Well...’ 

463 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the 

Eighteenth Century 

507 Chronicles of the Canongpte, 
and Other Stories 

William Sime’s Works* 

429 Boulderstone; or, New Men and 

Old Populations 

580 The Red Route. 

597 Haco the Dreamer 

649 fli’adle and Spade 

Hawley Smart’s Works* 


•348 From Post to Finish!! A Racing 

Romance 20 

367 Tie and Trick 20 

550 Struck Down 10 

847 Bad to Beat 10 

.925 The Outsider 20 

Frank E. Smedley’s Works* 

333 Frank Fairlegh; or. Scenes 
from the Life of a Private 


562 Lewis Arundel; or, The Rail- 
. road of Life 20 

T. W Speight’s Works* 

150 For Himself Alone 10 

653 A Barren Title 10 


S g B BB BS gggg^B BBSSB 


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11 


Robert Liouis Stevenson’s Works. 


686 Stran^'e Case of Dr. Jekylland 

Mr. Hyde 10 

704 Prince Otto 10 

832 Kidnapped 20 

855 The Dynamiter 20 

856 New Arabian Nights 20 

888 Treasure Island 10 

889 An Inland Voyage 10 

940 The Merry Men, and Other 

Tales and Fables 20 

1051 The Misadventures of John 
Nicholson 10 

Julian Sturgis’s Works. 

405 My Friends and I. Edited by 

Julian Sturgis 10 

694 John Maidment 20 


Kugene Sue’s Worlfs. 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part I... 30. 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part II.. 30 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 30 
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Pai-tll. 30 

George Temple’s Works. 


599 Lancelot Ward, M.P ‘. . .. 10 

642 Britta. 10 

William M. Thackeray’s Works. 

27 Vanity P'air. First half 20 

27 Vanity Fair. Second half 20 

165 The History of Henry Esmond; 20 

464 'J’he Newcomes. Parti 20 

464 The Newcomes. Part II 20 

670 The Rose and the Ring. Illus- 
trated. 10 


Two Miss Flemings.” 

637 What’s His Offence? 20 

780 Rare Pale Margaret 20 

784 The Two Miss Fleynings ..20 

831 Pomegranate Seed 20 

Annie Thomas’s Works. 

141 She Loved Him !..... 10 

142 Jenifer . .< 20 

565 No Medium ; 10 

Bertha Thomas’s Works. 

389 Ichabod. A Portrait 10 

960 Elizabeth’s Fortune 20 

Anthony Trollope’s Works. 

32 The Land Leaguers 20 

93 Anthony Trollope’s Autobiog- 

I'aphy 20 

147 Rjichel Ray 20 

200 An Old Man’s Love,. 10 

531 The Prime Minister. 1st half.. 20 
531 The Prime Minister. 2d half. .. 20 

621 The Warden 10 

622 Harry Heatlicote of Gangoil. . . lO 
667 The Golden Lion of Granpere.. 20 

700 Ralph the Heir. 1st half 20 

700 Ralph the Heir. 2d half 20 

775 The Three Clerks 20 i 


Mai*gai*et Veley’s Works. 

398 Mitchelhurst Place -. 10 

586 ” For Percival ” 20 

Jules Verne’s Works. 

87 Dick Sand; or, A Captain at 

Fifteen 20 

100 20.000 Leagues Under the Seas ^ 
368 The Southern Star ; or,the Dia- 
mond Land . 20 

395 The Archipelago on Fire 10 

578 Mathias Saudorf. Illustrated. 

Part I 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. Illustrated. 

Part II 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. Illustrated. ■ 

Part III 10 

659 The Waif of the “ Cynthia”.. 20 
751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
gators. First half 20 

751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
gators. Second half 20 

833 Ticket No. ”9672.” First half. 10 
833 Ticket No. “ 9672.” Second half 10 
976 Ro.bur the Conqueror; or. A 
Trip Round the World in a 

. Flying Machine 20 

1011 Texar's Vengeance ; or. North 

Versus South. Parti 20 

1011 Texar’s Vengeance ; or, North 

Versus South. Part II. . 20 

1020 Michael' Strogoff; or. The 

Courier of the Czar 20 

1050 The Tour of the World in 80 
Days 20 

li, B. Walford’s Works. 

241 The Baby’s Grandmother 10 

256 Mr. Smith : A Part of His Life. 20 

258 Cousins 20 

658 The History of a Week lO 

F. Warden’s Works. 

192 At the World’s Mercy 10 

248 The House on the Marsh 10 

286 Deldee; or, The Iron Hand... 20 

482 A Vagrant Wife 20 

556 A Prince of Darkness 20 

820 Doris's Fortune.. 20 

1037 Scheherazade : A London 
Night’s Entertainment 20 

William Ware’s Works. 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of Pal- 

rn.yra. 1st half 20 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of Pal- 
myra. 2d half . . . ; 20 

760 Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third 
Century 20 

Works by tbe Author of ‘‘Wedded 
Hands.” 

628 Wedded Hands 20 

968 Blossom and Fruit ; or, Mad- 
tuue’s Ward 20 


12 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 


E. Werner’s Works. 

827 Raymond’s Atonement 20 

540 At a High Price ^ 

15. ;5. WUyte-IHelville’s Works. 

409 Roy’s Wife 20 

451 Market Harborough, and Inside 
the Bar 20 

John Strange Win|ier’s Works. 

492 Booties’ Baby ; or, Mignon. Il- 
lustrated 10 

600 Houp-La. Illustrated 10 

638 In Quarters with the 25th (The 

Black Horse) Dragoons 10 

688 A Man of Honor. Illustrated. 10 
746 Cavalry Life : or, Sketches and 
Stories in Barracks and Out. 20 
813 Army Society. Life in a Gar- 


rison Town 10 

818 Pluck 10 


O , XV/ 

966 A Siege Baby and Childhood’s 

Memories 20 

971 Garrison Gossip: (fathered in 

Blankhampton 20 

1032 Mignon’s Husband 20 

1039 Driver Dallas 10 

Mrs. Henry Wood’s Works, 

8 East Lynne. First half 20 

8 East Lynne. Second half 20 

2.55 The Mystery 20 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters 10 

508 The Unholy Wish 10 

513 Helen Whitney’s Wedding, and 

Other Tales 10 

514 The Mystery of Jessy Page, 

and Other Tales '. 10 

610 The Story of Dorothy Grape, 

and Other Tales 10 

1001 Lady Adelaide’s Oath; or. The 

Castle’s Heir ; 20 

1021 The Heir to Ashley, and The 

Red-Court Farm 20 

1027 A Life’s Secret 20 

1042 Lady Grace 20 

Charlotte M. Yonge’s Works. 

247 The Armourer's Prentices 10 

275 The Three Brides 10 

535 Henrietta’s Wish; or. Domi- 
neering ■ 10 

563 Tlie Two Sides Of the Shield... 20 
640 Nuttie’s Father 20 

665 The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest. 20 

666 My Young Alcides; A Faded 

Photograph 20 

7.39 The Caged Lion 20 

742 Love and Life 20 

783 Chantry House 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls; or. The 
White and Black Ribaumont. 

First half 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or. The 
White and Black Ribaumont. 
Second half 20 


800 Hopes and Fears ; or. Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 

First half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 

Second half 20 

887 A Modern Telemachus 20 

1024 Under the Storm; or. Stead- 
fast’s Charge 20 

Miscellaneous. 

53 The Story of Ida. Francesca. . 10 
61 Charlotte Temple. Mrs. Row- 

son 10 

99 Barbara’s History. Amelia B, 

Edwards 20 

103 Rose Fleming. Dora Russell.. 10 
105 A Noble Wife. John Saunders 20 

111 The Little School-master Mark. 

J. H. Shorthouse 10 

112 The Waters of Marah, .John 

Hill 20 

113 Mrs; Carr’s Companion. M. G. 

Wightwick. 10 

114 Some of Our Girls. Mrs. C. J. 

Eiloart 20 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. T. 

Adolphus Trollope.... 10 

120 Tom Brown’s School Days at 

Rugby. Thomas Hughes 20 

127 Adrian Bright. Mrs. Caddy 20 

149 The Captain’s Daughter. From 

the Russian of Pushkin 10 

151 The Ducie Diamonds. C. Blath- 

erwick lo 

166 “For a Dream’s Sake.” Mrs. 

Herbert Martin 20 

158 The Starling. Norman Mac- 
leod, D.D 10 

160 Her Gentle Deeds. Sarah Ty tier 10 

161 The Lady of Lyons. Founded 

on the Play of that title by 

Lord Lyttop..’ lo 

163 Winifred Power. Joyce Dar- 
rell 20 

170 Great 'J’reason, A. By Mary 

Hoppus. First half 20 

170 Great Treason, A. ,By Mary 

Hoppus. Second half 20 

174 Under a Ban. Mrs. Lodge 20 

176 An April Day. Philippa Prit- 

tie Jephson lo 

178 More Leaves from the Journal 
of a Life in )the Highlands. 

Queen Victoria lo 

182 The Millionaire. '. 20 

185 Dita. Lady Margaret Maiendie 10 
187 The Midnight Sun. Fredrika 

Bremer lo 

198 A Husband’s Story ^ lo 

203 John Bull and His Island. Max 
O’Rell 10 

218 Agnes Sorel. G. P. R. James.. 20 

219 Lady Clare : or. The Master of 

the Forges. Georges Ohnet 10 
242 The Two Orphans. D’Ennery. 10 
253 The Amazon. Carl Vosmaer.. 10 
266 The Water-Babies. Rev. Chas. 
Kingsley lo 


3E SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition. 


13 


Rliscellaneouso-Continued* 

274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 
Princess of Great Britain and 
Ireland. Biographical Sketch 

. and Letters 10 

279 Little Goldie : A Story of Wom- 
an’s Love. Mrs. Sumner Hay- 
den 20 

285 The Gambler’s Wife 20 

289 John Bull’s Neighbor in Her 
True Light. A “ Brutal Sax- 
on ” -10 

311 Two Years Before the Mast. R. 

H. Dana, Jr 20 

329 The Polish Jew. (Translated 

from the French by Caroline 
A. Merighi.) Erckmann-Chat- 
rian ; 10 

330 May Blossom ; or. Between Two 

Loves. Margaret Lee 20 

334 A Marriage of Convenience. 

Harriett Jay 10 

335 The White Witch 20 

340 Under Which King? Compton 

Reade 20 

341 Madolin Rivers; or, The Little 

Beauty of Red Oak Seminary. 

Laura Jean Libbey 20 

347 As Avon Flows. Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

350 Diana of the Crossways. George 

Meredith 10 

352 At Any Cost. Edward Garrett. 10 

354 The Lottery of Life. A Story 

of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. John Brougham 20 

355 Tbe Princess Dagomar of Po- 

land. Heinrich Felbermann. 10 

356 A Good Hater. Frederick Boyle 20 
365 George Cnr isty; or, The Fort- 


unes of a Minstrel. Tony 

Pastor 

366 The Mysterious Hunter; or, 
The Man of Death. Cape. L. 

C. Carleton 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. Mrs. Hum- 
phry Ward 10 

374 The Dead Mah’s Secret. Dr. 
Jupiter Paeon . 20 

381 The Red Cardinal, i’rances 

Elliot 10 

382 Three Sisters. Elsa D’Esterre- 

Keeling ‘ 10 

383 Introduced to Society. Hamil- 

ton Aid6 10 

387 The Secret of the Cliffs. Char- 
lotte French 50 

403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole- 
ridge 20 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk. Samuel 

Warren 10 

407 TylneyHall. Thomas Hood. .. 20 

426 Venus’s Doves. Ida Ashworth 

Taylor 20 

430 A Bitter Reckoning. Author 
of “By Crooked Paths ”... . 10 

435 Kly tia : A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle. George Taylor 20 

436 Stella. Fatmy Le wald ^ 20 


441 A Sea Change. Flora L. Shhw. 20 

442 Rauthorpe. George Henry 


Lewes 20 

443 The Bachelor of the Albany... 10 

457 The Russians at the Gates of 

Herat. Charles Marvin. 10 

458 A Week of Passion; or. The 

Dilemma of Mr. George Bar- 
ton the Younger. Edward 

Jenkins 20 

468 The Fortunes, Good and Bad, 
of a Sewing-Girl. Charlotte 

M. Stanley 10 

483 Betwixt My Love and Me. By 
author of “ A Golden Bar ’’. . , 10 
485 Tinted Vapours. J. Maclaren 

Cobban 10 

491 Society in London. A Foreign 

Resident., 10 

493 Colonel Enderby’s Wife. Lucas 

Malet... 20 

501 Mr. Butler’s Ward. F. Mabel 
Robinson 

504 Curly : An Actor’s Story. John 

Coleman 

505 The Society of London. Oouni; - 

Paul Vasili y,9 

510 A Mad Love. Author of “ Lover 

and Lord’’ . 10 

512 The Waters of Herenies. ....... 20 

518 The Hidden Sin,.... 80 

519 James Gordon’s Wife, 20 

526 Madame De Presnei. E. Fran- 
ces Poynter '20 

532 Arden Court. Barbara Graham 29 

533 Hazel Kirke. Marie Walsh. .. . 20 
536 .Dissolving Views. Mrs. Andrew 

Lang 19 

515 Vida’s Story. By the author of 
“ Guilty Without Crime ”. . . lO 
646 Mrs. Keith’s Crime. A Novel.. 10 
571 Paul Crew’s Story. Alice (3o- 

mynsCarr 

575 The Finger of Fate. Captain 

\ Mayne Reid 20 

581/ The Betrothed, (I Promessi 
( Sposi.) Allessandro Manzoni 20 

582SLucia, Hugh and Another. Mrs. 

J. H. Needed 20 

583 Victory Deane. Cecil Griffith.. 20 

584 Mixed Motives 10 

599 Lancelot Ward, M.P. George 

Temple iO 

612 My Wife’s Niece. By the author 
of “ Dr. Edith Romney ” 20 


621 Primus in Indis. M. J. Colqu- 

houn 

634 The Unforeseen. Alice O’Han- 
lon 

641 The Rabbi’s Spell. Stuart C, 

Cumberland 

643 The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey 
Crayon, Gent. Washington 

Irving 

654 “Us.” An Old-fashioned Story. 

Mrs. Moiesworth 

662 The Mystery of Allan Grale. 
Isabella Tyvie Mayo,., 


w 

io 

23 

m 

20 


14 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 


608 Half-Way. An Anglo-French 

Eoinance,... 20 

669 The Pliilnsonhy of Whist. 

William Pole ; 20 

675 Mrs. Dymond. Miss 'I’hackeray 20 
681 A Singer’s Story. May Laifan. 10 

683 The Bachelor Vicar of New- 

forth. Mrs. J. Harcourt-Roe. 20 

684 Last Days at Apswieli 10 

692 The Mikado, and Other Comic • 

Operas. Written by W. S. 
Gilbert. Composed by Arthur 

Sullivan 20 

706 The Woman I Loved, and the 
Woman W^ho Loved Me. Isa 

• Blagden 10 

706 A Crimson Stain. Annie Brad- 
shaw 10 

712 For Maimie’s Sake. Grant 

Allen 20 

718 Unfairly Won. Mrs. Power 

O’Donogime 20 

719 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 

Lord Byron 10 

723 Mauleverer’s Millions. T. We- 

myss Reid 20 

725 My Ten Years’ Imprisonment. 

Silvio Pellico 10 

730 The Autobiography of Benja- 
min Franklin 10 

735 Until the Day Breaks. Emily 

Spender 20 

738 In the Golden Days. Edna 

Lyall 20 

748.Hurrish: A Study. By the 

Hon. Emily Lawless 20 

750 An Old St<iry of My Farming 
Days. Fritz Reuter. 1st half 20 
7.50 An Old Story of My Farming 

Days. Fritz Reuter. 2d half 20 
752 Jackanapes, and Other Stories. 
Juliana Horatia Ewing 10 

7.54 How to be Happy Though Mar- 

ried. lijy a Graduate in the 
University of Matrimony 20 

7.55 Margery Daw 20 

756 The Strange Adventures of Cap- 
tain Dangerous. A Narrative 

in Plain English. Attempted 

by George Augustus Sala 20 

7.57 Love’s Martyr. Laurence Alma 

Tadema 10 

7.59 In Shallow W'^aters. Annie Ar- 

niitf 20 

766 No. XIII; or. The Story of the 

Lost Vestal. Emma Marshall 10 
770 The Castle of Otranto. Hor- 
ace Walpole 10 

773 The Mark of Cain. Andrew 

Lang 10 

774 The Life and Travels of Jlungo 

Park 10 

776 P6re Goriot. Honor6 De Balzac 20 

777 The Voyages and Travels of 

of Sir John Maundeville, Kt. . 10 

778 Society’s Verdict. By the au- 

thor of “ My Marriage ” 20 

786 Ethel Mildma5’’’s Follies. By au- 
thor of “Petite’s Romance”. 20 i 


793 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 

• Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 

Beaconsfleld. First half 20 

TQS Vivian Grey. By the Rt Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfleld. Second half .. . 20 
801 She Stoops to Conquer, and 
The Good-Natured Man. Olir 

ver Goldsmith 10 

803 Major Frank. A. L. G, Bos- 

boom-Toussaint. . . 20 

807 If Love Be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs ^ 

809 Witness My Hand. By author 

of “ Lady’ Gwendolen’s Tryst ” 10 

810 The Secret of Her Life. Ed- 

ward Jenkins 20 

816 Rogues and Vagabonds. By 
George R., Sims, author of 

“’Ostler Joe”, 20 

822 A Passion Flower. A Novel ^ 

8.52 Under Five Lakes. M. Quad.. ^ 
879 Tlie Touchstone of Peril. A 
Novel of Anglo-Indian Life, 
With Scenes During the Mu- 
tiny. R. E. Forrest 20 

885. Les Blisdrables. Victor Hugo, 

‘ Part i 20 

885 Les Mis6rables, Victor Hugo. 
Part II 20 

885 Les Mis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

Part HI 20 

908 A Willful Young Woman 20 

913 The Silent Shore. . John 

Bloundelle-Burton 20 

915 That Other Per.son. Mrs. Al- 
fred Hunt. First half 20 

915 That Other Person. Mrs. Al- 
fred Hunt. Second half 20 

917 The Case of Reuben Malachi. 

H. Sutherland Edwards 10 

919 Locksley Hall Sixty Y'ears Af- 

ter. etc. By Alfred, Lord Ten- 
nyson, P.L., D.C L 10 

920 A Child of the Revolution. By 

the author of Mademoiselle 
Mori ” 20 

921 The Late Miss Hollingford. 

Rosa Mulholland 10 

Hidden Terror. Mary Albert 20 
93< Cashel Byron’s Profession. By 

Heorge Bernard Shaw 20 

9.38 Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell ... 20 

954 A Girl’s Heart. B.y the author 

of “ Nobody’s Darling” 20 

956 Her Johnnie. By Violet W^hyte 20 

964 A Struggle for the Right; or. 

Tracking the Truth 20 

96.5 Periwinkle. By Arnold Gray. 20 

966 He, by the author of King, 
Solomon’s Wives”; and A 
Siege Baby and Childhood’s 
Memories, by J, S. Winter. . . 20 
970 King Solomon’s Wives; or. The 
Phantom Mines. By Hyder 

Ragged. (Illustrated) 20 

984 Her Own Sister. By E. S. Will- 
iamson 20 

886 The Great Hesper, By Frank 

Barrett 20 


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15 


99::i Marrying and Giving in Mar- 
riage. B}" Mrs. Mcdesworth. 20 
994 A Penniless Orphan. By W. 

Heimburg 20 

1028 A Wasted Love. A Novel 20 


1030 The Mistress of Ibichstein. By 


Fr. Henkel 20 

1034 The Silence of Dean Maitland. 

By Maxwell Gray 20 

1043 Faust. By Goethe 20 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.-Pocket Edition, 

IJncliaitged a,nd Unabridged* 

LATES'J’ ISSUES: 


NO. pnicic 

609 Pole on Wlifst 20 

432 THE WITCH’S HEAD. By 
H. Rider Hagrgrard. . . ; 20 

1009 In an Evil Hour, and Other 

Stories. By “ TJie Duchess ” 20 

1010 Golden Gates, By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 20 

1011 Texar’s Vengeance; or, North 

Versus South, Jules Verne. 
Part 1 20 

1011 Texar’s Vengeance : or, North 

Versus South. By Jules Verne 
Part II 20 

1012 A Nameless Sin. By Charlotte 

At. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 20 

1013 The Confessions of Gerald 

Estcourt. Florence Harryat. 20 

1014 A Mad Love. By Charlotte M. 

Braeme. author of Dora 
Thorne” 20 

1015 A Thousand Francs Reward, 

By Emile Gaboriau 20 

1016 A Modern Circe. By “ The 

Duchess” 20 

lOir Tricotrin. TheStory of a Waif 
and Stray. “Ouida.” 1st half 20 

1017 Tricotrin. TheStorvof a Waif 

and Stray. “Ouida.” 2d half 20 

1018 Two Marriages. By Miss Mu- 

lock 20 

1019 Slajor and Minor. By W. E. 

Norris. 1st Iialf 20 

1019 Major and Minor. By AV. E. 

Norris. 2d half 20 

1020 Micliael Strogotf ; or, The Cou- 

rier of the Czar. Jules Verne 20 

1021 Tile Heir to Ashley, and "Ifie 

Red -Court Farm. By Mrs. 
Henry Wood 20 

1022 Driven to Bay. By Florence 

Marryat * 20 

1023 Next of Kin — Wanted. By M, 

Betliam-Edwards 20 

1024 Under the Storm; or. Stead- 

fast’s Charge, By Charlotte 
M. Yonge 20 

1025 Daisy’s Dilemma. By Mrs. H.. 

Lovett Cameron 20 

1026 A Dark Inheritance. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

1027 A Ijife’s Secret. By Mrs. Henry 

Wood 20 

1028 A Wasted Love. A Novel. . 20 

1029 Armadale. By Wilkie Collins. 

1st half 20 

1029 Armadale. By Wilkie Collins'. ~ 
2d half 20 

Tlie foregoing works, concained in 


NO. PRICK. 

1030 The Mistress of Ibichstein. By 

Fr. Henkel 20 

1031 Irene’s Vow. By Charlotte M. 

Braeme, author of ‘‘ Dora 
Thorne ” 20 

1032 Mignon’s Husband, By John 

Strange Winter .... 20 

1033 Esther: A Story for Girls, By 

Rosa. Nouchette Carey 20 

1034 The Silence of Dean Maitland. 

By Maxwell Gray 20 

1035 The Duchess. By “ The Duch- 

ess” 20 

1036 Like and Unlike, By Miss M, 

E. Braddon 20 

1037 Scheherazade: A London 

Night's Entertainment. By 
Florence Warden 20 

1038 Mistress and Maid. By Miss 

Mulock 20 

1039 Dnver Dalla.s. By John Strange 

Winter lO 

lOlO Clarissa’s Ordeal. By the au- 
thor of ‘‘A Great Mistake.” 
First half 20* 

1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal. Bv the au- 

thor of “ A Great Mistake.” 
Second half 20 

1041 Home Again. By George Mac- 

donald 20 

1042 Lady Grace. Mrs. Henry Wood 20 

1043 Faust. By Goethe 20 

1044 The Frozen Pirate. By W. 

Clark Russell ’ 20 

1046 Jessie. By the author of ” Ad- 

die’s Husband ” 20 

1047 Marvel. By “The Duchess”.. 20 

1048 The Wreck of the “Grosvenor.” 

By W. Clark Russell. 20 

1049 A Tale of Three Ijiohs. and On 
Going Back. H. Rider Haggard 20 

1050 The Tour of the World in 80 

Days. By Jules A’^erne 20 

1051 ’I’he Misadventures of John 

Nicholson. By Robert Louis 
Stevenson jo 

1052 Signa’s Sweetheart. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 

f “ Dora Thorne ” 20 

1053\Young Mrs. Jardine. By Miss 
Mulock 20 

1054 Mona’s Choice. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 

1055 Katharine Regina. By Walter 

Besant 20 

1056 The Bride of the Nile. By 

George Ebers. let half 20 

1056 The Bride of the Nile. By 
George Ebers, 2d half 20 


« -i Skasidic Library, Pocket Edition 

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P. O, Box 8<61. ]7 to 27 Vandewater Street, N. Y. 



Nachfolgende Werke sind in der 


1 Der Kaiser von Prof. G. Ebers 20 

2 Die Somosierra von R. Wald* 

miiller 10 

3 DasGelieimnissderalten Mara- 

sell. Roman von E. Marlitt. 10 

4 Qiiisisana von Fr. Spielhagen 10 

5 Gai tenlauben- Bliithen von E. 

Werner 20 

6 Die Hand der Nemesis von E. 

A. Konip: 20 

7 Amtmanij’s Maprd v. E Marlitt 20 

8 Vineta von E. Werner 20 

9 Auf der Riimmingsburg von M. 

Widdern 10 

10 Das Haus Hillel von Max Ring 20 

11 Qliicka^fl von E. Werner 10 

12 Goldelse von E. Marlitt 20 

13 Vater und Sohn von F. Lewald 10 

14 Die Wtirger von Paris von C. 

Vacauo' 20 

15 Der Diamantschleifer von Ro- 

senthal Bonin. . . 10 

16 Ingo und Ingraban von Gustav 

Frey tag . . 20 

17 Eine Frage von Georg Ebers.. 10 

18 Im Paradiese von Paul H^iyse 20 
‘ 19 In beiden Heinispharen von 

Sutro 10 

20 Gelebt undgelitten von H. Wa- 

cbenbusen 20 

21 Die Eichhofs von M. von Rei- 

chenbach 10 

22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse. 

Erste Hftlfte 20 

22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse. 

Zweite HSiIfte 20 

23 Barfiissele von Berthold Auer- 

bach 10 

24 Das Nest der Zaunkonige von 

G. Frey tag 20 

25 Friililingsboteu von E. Werner 10 

26 Zelle No.. 7 von Pierre Zacoue 20 

27 Die juuge Frau v..H. Wachen- 

huseu 20 

28 Buchenheim von Th. v. Varn- 

biiler 10 

29 Auf derBahn des Verbreehens ' 

V, Ewald A. Konig 20 

30 Brigitta von Berth. Auerbach. . 10 

81 Im Sciiillingshof v. E. Marlitt 20 
'32 Gesprengte Fesseln v. E. Wer- 
ner 10 

83 Der Heiduck von Hans Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

34 Die Sturmhexe von Grafln M. 

Keyserling 10 

85 Das Kind Bajazzo’s von E. A. 

K6nig 20 

86 Die Brlider vom deutschen 

Hatise von Gustav Frey tag.. 20 

87 Der Wilddieb v. F. GerstScker 10 

88 Die Verlobte von Rob. Wald- 

miller -■ 30 


„Deulischeii Library" erscbienen: 


39 Der DoppelgSnger von L. 

Schiicking 10 

40 Die weisse Frau von Greifen- 

stein von E. Fels 20 

41 Hans und Grete von Fr. Spiel- 

hagen 10 

42 Mein Onkel Don Juan von H. 

Hopfen 20 

43 Markus Kdnig v. Gustav Frey- 

tag 20 

44 Die schOnen Amerikauerinnen 

von Fr. Spielhageu 10 

45 Das grosse Loos v. A. Konig.. 20 

46 Zur Ehre Gottes von Sacher 

und Ultimo v. F. Spielhagen 10 

47 Die Geschwister von Gustav 

Freytag 20 • 

48 Bischof und Konig von Mariam 

Tenger und Der Pirateakd- 
nig von M. Jokai 10 

49 Reichsgrafin Gisela v. Marlitt 20 

50 Bevvegte Zeiten v.Leon Alexan- 

drowitsch 10 

51 Um Ehre und Leben von E. A. 

Konig 20 

62 Aus einer kleinen Stadt v. Gu- 
stav Frey tag 20 

53 Hildegard von Ernst v.Waldow 10 

54 Dame Orange von Hans Wa- 

chenhu.sen 20 

55 Johanuisnacht von M. Schmidt 10 

56 Angela von Fr. Spielhagen... 20 

57 Falsche Wege von J. v. Brun- 

Barnow 10 

58 Versunkene Welten von Wilh. 

Jensen 20 

59 Die Wohnungssucher von A. 

von Winterfeld 10 

60 Eine Million von E. A, Kdnig 20 

61 Das Skelet von F. Spielhagen 

und Das Frdlenhaus von Gu- 
stav zu Putlitz 10 

62 Soli und Haben v. G. Freytag. 

Erste Halfte 20 

62 Soil und Haben v. G. Freytag. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

63 Schloss Griinwald von Char- 

lotte Fielt 10 

64 Zwei Kreuzherren von Lucian 

Herbert 20 

65 Die Erlebnisse einer Schutzlo- 

sen V. Kath. Sutro-Schttcking 10 

66 Das Haideprinzesschen von E. 

Marlitt 20 

67 Die Geyer-Wally von Wilh. von 

Hi Hern 10 

68 Idealisten von A. Reinow 20 

69 Am Altar von E. Werner 10 

70 Der Konig der Luft von A. v. 

Winterfeld 20 

71 Moschko von Parma v. Karl E. 

Franzos ... If 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBRAUY. 


72 Schuld und SUhne von Ewald 

A. Kdnig' 

78 In Reih’ und Glied v. F. Spiel- 

hagen. Erste HSIfte 

78 In Reih’ und Glied v. F. Spiel- 
hagen, ZweiteHaifte 

74 Geheimnisse einer kleinen 

Stadt von A. von Winterfeld 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein von 

B. Auerbach. Erste Hfilfte.. 

75 Das Landlmus am Rhein von 

B. Auerbach. Zweite Halfte 

76 Clara Vere von Friedrich Spiel- 

hagen 

77 Die Frau Biirgermeisterin von 

G. Ebers 

78 Aus eigener Kraft von Wilh. 

V. Hi Hern 

79 Ein Kampf urn’s Recht von K. 

Franzos 

80 Priuzessin Schnee von Marie 

Widdern 

81 Die zweite Frau von E. Marlitt 

82 Benvenuto von Fanny Lewald 

83 Pegsimisten von F. von Stengel 

84 Die Hofdame der Erzherzogin 

von F. von Witzleben-Wen- 
delstein 

85 Ein Vierteljahrhundert von B. 

Young 

86 Thiiringer Erz^hlungen von E. 

Marlitt 

87 Der Erbe von Mortella von A*. 

Dom.. 

88 Vom armen egyptischen Mann 

V. Hans Wachenhusen 

89 Der goldene Schatz aus dem 

dreissigjiihrigen Krieg v. E. 
A. Konig 

90 Das FrSulein von St.' Ama- 

ranthe von R. von Gottschall 

91 Der Fiirst von Montenegro v. 

A. Winterfeld 

92 Utn ein Herz von E Falk 

93 Uarda von Georg Ebers 

94 In der zwdiften Stunde von 

Fried. Spielhageu und Ebbe 
und Fluth von M. Widdern... 

95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr. 

Spielhagen, Erste HSlfte. . 

95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr. 

Spielhagen. Zweite Haifte.. 

96 Deutsch und Siavisch v. Lucian 

Herbert 

97 Im Hause des Commerzien- 

Raths von Marlitt 

98 Helene yon H. Wachenhusen 

und Die Prinzessin von Por- 
tugal V. A. Meissner 

99 Aspasia von Robert Hammer- 

ling 

100 Ekkehard v. Victor v. Scheffel 

101 Ein Kampf urn Rom V. F.Dahn. 

Erste Haifte 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom v.F.Dahn*. 

Zweite Haifte 

102 Spinoza von Berth. Auerbach! 

103 Von der Erde zum Mond von 

J. Verne 


104 Der Todesgruss der Legionen 

von G. Samarow..., 20 

105 Reise um den Mond von Julius 

Verne 10 

106 Ftli st und Musiker von Max 

Ring 90 

107 Nena Sahib v. J. Retcliffe. Er- 

ster Band 20 

10? Nena Sahib von J. Retcliffe. 

ZweiterBand 20 

107 Nena Sahib von J. Retcliffe. 

DritterBand 20 

108 Reise nach dem Mittelpunkte 

der Erde von Julius Verne 10 

109 Die silberne Hochzeit von S. 

Kohn 10 

110 Das Spukehaus von A. v. Win- 

terfeld 20 

111 Die Erben des Wahnsinns von 

T. Marx 10 

112 Der Ulan von Joh. van Dewall 10 
113. Um hohen Preis v. E. Werner 20 
114 Schwarzwaider Dorfgeschich- 

ten von B. Auerbach. Erste 
Haifte 20 

114 Schwarzwaider Dorfgescfiich- 

ten V. B. Auerbach. Zweite 
Haifte 20 

115 Reise um die Erde von Julius 

Verne 10 

116 Casars Ende von S. J. R. 

(Schluss von 104) 20 

117 Auf Capri von Carl Detlef 10 

118 Severn von E. Hartner 20 

119 Ein Arzt der Seele von Wilh. 

V. HiUern 20 

120 Die Livergnas von Hermann 

Willfried. 10 

121 Zwanzigtausend Meilen un- 

term Meer von J. Verne 20 

122 Mutter und Sohn von August 

Godin 10 

123 Das Haus des Fabrikanten v, 

Samarow 20 

124 Bruderpflicht und Liebe von 

Schiicking lo 

^ OK k \ i rv 1. 3 ^ k V... ^ ^ J Tn • 


V. G. Samarow. Erste Haifte 20 

125 Die Romerfahrt der Epigonen 

V. G. Samarow. ZweiteHSlfte 20 

126 Porkeles und Porkelessa von 


J Sell err lo 

127 Ein Friedensstorer von Victor 

Blvithgen und Der heirnliche 
Gast von R. Bvr 20 

128 Schone Frauen v. R. Edmund 

Hahn jq 

129 Bakchen und Thyrs’ostra’ger 

von A. Niemann 20 

130 Getrennt. Roman von E.Polko 10 

131 Alte Ketten. Roman von L. 

Schtteking go 

132 Ueber die Wolken v. Wilhelm 

Jensen iq 

133 Das Gold des Orion von H, 

Rosenthal-Bonin.. lo 

134 Um den Halbmond von Sama* 

row. Erst© HSlf te. gg 


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20 

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10 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

10 

20 

10 

20 

10 

20 

10 

20 

10 

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DIE DEltfSfmE LlBRARt. 


184 Um (ien Halbmond von Sama- 

row. ZvveiteHaifte....:.... 20 
133 Troubadour -Novellen von P. 

Heyse.. 10 

136 Der Schweden-Schatz von H. 

Wacheuhusen 20 

137 Die Bettlerin vom Pont des 

Arts iind Das Bild des Kaisers 
von Wilh. Hauff 10 

138 Modelle. Hisf, Roman von A. v. 

Winterfeld'. 20 

139 Der Krieg um die Haube von 

Stefanie Keyser 10 

140 Nutna Roumestan v. Alphonse 

Daudet 20 

141 SpStsommer. Novelle von C. 

von Sydovv und Engelid, No- 
velle V. Balduin Blollhausen 10 

142 BartolomSus von Brusehaver 

u. Musma Cussalin. Novellen 
von L. Ziemssien 10 

143 Ein gemeuchelter Dichter. Ko- 

mischer Roman von A. von 
Winterfeld. Erste Halfte 20 

143 Ein gemeuchelier Dichter. Ko- 

niischer Roman von A. von 
AVinterfeld. Zweite Halfte., 20 

144 Ein Wort. Neuer Roman von 

G. Ebers 20 

145 Novellen von Paul Heyse 10 

146 Adam Homo in Versen v. Pa- 

ludan-MuUer 20 

147 Ihr einziger Bruder von W, 

Heimburg, 10 

148 Ophelia. Roman von H. von 

Lankenau / 20 

149 Nemesis v. Helene v. Hlilsen 10 

150 Felicitas. Histor. Roman von 

F. Dahn 10 

151 Die Claudier. Roman v. Ernst 

Eckstein 20 

152 Eine Verlorene von Leopold 

Kompert.^. 10 

153 Lnginsland.* Roman von Otto 

Roquette 20 

154 Im Baune der Musen von W. 

Heimburg..... 10 

155 Die Schwester v. L. Schiicking 10 

156 Die Colonie von Friedrich Ger- 

stacker 20 

157 Deutsche Liebe. Roman v. M. 

MiiUer 10 

158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels. 

Erste Halfte 20 

158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

159 Debora. Roman von W. Muller 10 


160 Eine Mutter v. Friedrich Ger- 

stacker..-. 20 

161 Friedliofsblume von W. von 

Hillern., 10 

162 Nach der ersten Liebe von 

Frenzel 20 

163 Gebannt u. erlost v. E. Werner ^ 
161 Uhleuhans. Roman von i ried. 

Spielhagen 20 

165 Klytia. Histor. Roman von G. 

Taylor 20 

166 Mayo. Erzaiilung v. P. Lindau 10 

167 Die Herrin von Ibichstein von 

F. Henkel 20 

168 Die Saxoborussen von Sa«ia- 

row. Erste Halfte 20 

168 Die Saxoborussen von Sama- 

row. Zweite Halfte 20 

169 Serapis. Histor. Roman v. G. 

Ebers 20 

170 Ein Gottesurtheil. Roman von 

E. Werner 10 

171 Die Krenzfahrer, Roman von 

Felix Dahn 20 

172 Der Erbe von Weidenhof von 

F. Pelzeln 20 

173 Die Relse nach dem Schicksal 

V, Franzos 10 

174 Villa Sclionow. Roman v. W. 

Raabe 10 

175 Das Vermachtniss v, Eckstein. 

Erste Halfte 20 

175 Das Vermachtniss v. Eckstein. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

176 Herr und Frau Bewer von P. 

Lindau 10 

177 Die Nihilisten von Joh. Scherr 10 

178 Die Frau mit den Karfunkel- 

steinen von E. Marlitt 20 

179 Jetta. Von George Taylor.... 20 

180 Die Stieftochter. Von J. Smith 20 
ISl An der Heilquelle. Von Fried, 

Spielhagen... 20 

182 Was der Todtenkopf erzahlt, 

von Jokai 20 

183 Der Zigeunerbaron, von Jokai 10 

184 Himmlische u. irdische Liebe, 

von Paul Heyse 20 

185 Ehre, Roman v. O. Schubin... 20 

186 Violanta, Roman v. E. Eckstein 20 

187 Nemi, Erzahluug von H. Wa- 

chenhusen 10 

188 Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall. 

prste Halfte 20 

188 Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

189 Homo sum, Roman von Georg 

Ebers 20 


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